We both slept much of the train ride, having spent four days climbing the hills of Porto and having been at open mic night until late. We talked with the musicians there for a time and got an overview of the music scene in Porto. The woman had grown up in Luxembourg and couldn't believe that I had also lived there.
We picked up the car in Lisbon and headed for Évora over the longest bridge I have ever been on in my life, the Vasco da Gama. We were over water for...well, at least 10 minutes. At 7.67 miles long, it is the second longest bridge in Europe. I was somewhat nervous driving over it, but I only drive a couple of times a year and I was in a rental car - a BMW convertible - and it was basically the first thing I did behind the wheel in over a year. There were six lanes so I stayed in the middle lane. I still drove 75. LOL
After the bridge, the drive was not all that interesting until we got out of the Lisbon metro area. The highways are not like our interstates where there are exits everywhere; they are designed to get to the major cities, so we couldn't really stop in small towns to have a look around. But the trees were enough for me. First, the pine trees with the rounded tops. Then, the cork trees.
I knew they were cork trees when I saw them. I knew it because they were weird and they looked farmed and this was the cork capital of the world. There were miles of them. Our drive to Évora was only an hour and a half but they were the trees we saw for a quarter of it. They were exotic to me; they told me I was in a different place, another world from the one I had been trapped in for three years while we waited for the germs to leave us alone.
We arrived to Évora thinking "all right, we are here!" But we soon learned that Google Maps is...not quite accurate, and though I had chosen a hotel in the center of everything, you couldn't actually get there by car. We drove around in circles as the GPS lady with the most gringo pronunciations possible told us to turn onto Jesus 2 street and there WAS no Jesus 2 street. We asked a guy where to go and he told us the yellow and white building.
All of the buildings in the city are yellow and white.
I was losing my mind. I was tired, and I realized I actually hate driving. Hate it. They should have a big parking lot for everyone to park at the outskirts of the city.
Oh wait, they did. But I didn't know that until the last day we were there. In the meantime, I parked in a residential zone, unaware on the first night then fully aware the next day but willing to risk a ticket, because I wasn't touching that car until we went to see things outside the city since there was no parking. LOL
That's how it should be, though. I had only rented a car because I wanted to see things outside Évora and the southern coast that weren't accessible by public transportion. Portugal's public transport could use an upgrade, as getting between many cities is slow and inefficient because trains only run through the major cities and the local buses stop everywhere. Like, EVERYWHERE. Even though 16 nights seems like a long vacation, it really isn't, at least not long enough for five hour bus rides.
Within cities is different. European cities are old. They are designed practically with pedestrian-only zones and large public squares and community gathering spaces that we in the US have discarded for stripmalls and parking lots. It's one huge reason that so many Americans have no sense of community and no concern for others; American car culture has produced a country of social isolation, which has lead directly to the current mental health crisis and the embrace of cruelty in policymaking. We should be pushing our politicians to end car culture and bring back community spaces, but 70 years of marketing by the auto industry has entirely brainwashed the country. Car culture is creeping into Europe, too, at the very time we desperately need to end car dependence. The planet is literally on fire, in large part due to cars.
If I had to do it over again I probably wouldn't rent the car. But then we might have missed the cork farm...
We arrived to Évora in the evening and could not find the hotel after we parked. Not kidding. We wandered. We split up. (Not on purpose.) Google Maps was inaccurate. So were the people we asked. But we finally made it, separately but about the same time.
We checked in by the big cow then went for dinner. The large public square near the hotel had plenty of outdoor tables, but most of it was small plates and lunch type of things, and we wanted to try something new. I had a beer and we people watched for a bit while the sun sank over this former Roman city.
I wondered what was in the alley just off the square, so I peeked around the corner. Voila. What they call the "nightlife" street of Évora was lined with restaurants. We stopped at a place called Mr. Pickwick and had a fantastic dinner. I had pork cheeks in a traditional sauce from the area. I think Chris had lamb. We ate too much then ate some more. The restaurant was full of fun stuff on the walls and Mr. Pickwick himself was tending bar. (That wasn't his real name. LOL) I tried a wine of the region - not as good as Douro wines but still good.
After dinner, we set out to hear live music, but there was none on a Thursday evening in this small town, so we hung out with some Portuguese and listened to rock music for awhile before heading back and succumbing to sleep.
The next day would be a macabre kind of day.
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