Évora 2

One of the really great things about this visit to Évora was that we were on our own - no schedule - so we were free to do what we wanted, change our minds, just wander leisurely. And that's what we did.

We arrived at around noon on Tuesday after a 3 hour bus ride and, as I mentioned in the last blog, had lunch in Praça Giraldo and made plans to visit the Cathedral, the Roman temple and the Palàcio de Cadaval - which we did. And, of course, a little shopping happened in there somewhere. I talked about the cathedral in the last blog so on to the temple and the palace.

The Roman Corinthian style temple of Évora, often erroneously called the temple of Diana, was likely built in the 1st century AD in honour of Emperor Augustus who was venerated as a god. In the 5th century Évora was invaded and the temple was essentially destroyed. The ruins were incorporated into the Évora Castle during the middle ages. They remained embedded in the walls of the medieval building, which was allegedly used as a butcher shop from the 14th century, until 1836. The incorporation into the medieval wall likely helped preserve the ruins from further destruction until 1871 when restoration began and the layers of the wall were removed.

The complete base (the podium), the columns and the bit between the capitals and the roof (which I learned are called architraves), are granite while the base of the columns and the capitals are marble, thought to be from a quarry not far from here.

It's quite a surreal feeling to stand next to a structure like this that was made by the Romans over 2000 years ago. Awe, I guess, is the feeling, realizing the sophistication of the engineering of the entire structure, but especially the nearly 8 meter high granite columns the shape of which is precisely designed to bear the enormous weight of the upper part of this temple. And, though the temple has had some help of the centuries, part of it is still there to be seen over 2000 years later.

Palàcio de Cadaval - This photo shows a bit of the courtyard and the stairway we used to get to the second level of the Palàcio de Cadaval. This building is a remnant of a palace which burnt down in 1384 during the people’s revolt. It now has a 17th century front, dominated by the architectural style of the Manueline-Moorish period, and the Tower of Five Shields, but we failed to note or recognize either of these.

Previously the palace of the governor of Évora, it was also used in the past as a royal residence. Much to the annoyance of the folks in Lisboa, several royal personages apparently chose to reside much of the time in Évora. The Duke of Bragança, D. Fernando II didn't fare well in Évora though as he was apparently sentenced to death here in 1483.

This image looks across the courtyard to the tower of the Lóios church and convent (now a Pousada - sort of a hotel) adjacent to the palace and to the view beyond. Note the small conical structure and the moorish arch over the doorway (did you click to enlarge the photo so you can see the arch?). We're not sure what this is, but it could be what remains of an oven or cooking area related to the old Moor building, described as a "primitive castle" in one piece I read, behind the palace. We didn't explore this structure further.

Though some of this "palace" was quite attractive (see some of the photos), overall we were both puzzled and disappointed in this place.

It is identified as a palace, but it certainly didn't fit our expectations of one. It rather seems to be a large old building decorated with old paintings and artifacts, none of which provided any real coherence that we could find. We enjoyed all of our other experiences in Évora so much, but this one did fall short of expectations.

This photo taken from the balcony outside the entrance to the palace, includes the upper part of the temple and the towers of the cathedral in the distance.

This was the end of our planned day so we decided to walk back the Giraldo and then to our hotel, the Dom Fernando.

On our way to the hotel we passed the Church of St. Francis (tower of the church in this photo) which houses the Chapel of Bones, neither of which we had time to visit (we had seen a chapel of bones in Faro and visiting another was not high on our list).

When we first arrived at the hotel at noon, we noticed a very interesting structure across from the hotel. As you can see from the photos, it is very unusual and we thought it must be one of the attractions in Évora, but we were completely wrong. It turns out, as far as we could tell, to be just an interesting looking church.

I went out before dinner to explore the city wall which was just a block away (our hotel is outside the city wall) and found some interesting things in the beautiful public park just inside the wall.

Later, we had a nice dinner of regional food and planned activities for the following day. More on that in the next blog.