Évora stands on the great plain of the Alentejo, about 135 kilometres from Lisbon, and is one of Portugal's most beautiful cities: its walled, almost intact historic centre has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986. With about 53,000 people in its municipality, it is today a university and archiepiscopal city and the cultural capital of the region, and in 2027 it will be European Capital of Culture. White houses trimmed in yellow, cobbled lanes, churches and palaces tell two thousand years of history.
A little history
In Roman times Évora was called Liberalitas Julia and was an important commercial and military centre at the crossroads of routes across the peninsula. After the Visigoths it was under Moorish rule for more than four centuries, until in 1165 it was retaken by Geraldo Sem Pavor, Gerald the Fearless, who gives his name to the main square. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance it was one of the favourite residences of the kings of Portugal and one of the country's most important cities, rich in palaces, convents and works of art.
In 1559 Cardinal Henry founded a university here run by the Jesuits. Decline came in the following centuries: with the union of the crowns of Portugal and Spain (1580-1640) the court no longer resided here, and in 1759, when the Marquis of Pombal expelled the Jesuits, the university was closed. Reopened in 1973, it once again livens up the city with thousands of students.
The Roman temple and the cathedral
Évora's symbol is the Roman Temple, built in the first century AD and often called, without historical basis, the Temple of Diana: the podium and fourteen Corinthian columns survive, remarkably well preserved because for centuries the building was incorporated into other structures. Beside it are the viewpoint garden overlooking the plain and the Pousada dos Lóios, in the former convent.
A few steps away stands the Sé, the cathedral of Santa Maria, begun at the end of the twelfth century and consecrated in 1204, fortress-like with its two towers. On the portal are fourteenth-century statues of the apostles; inside, Gothic naves and a Baroque choir; from the Gothic cloister and the roof terraces the view of the city is superb. The Museum of Sacred Art holds, among other treasures, the Virgem do Paraíso, a thirteenth-century ivory statuette that opens into a triptych.
The Chapel of Bones and other churches
In the church of São Francisco, Gothic with Manueline additions, is the famous Capela dos Ossos, the Chapel of Bones, built in the seventeenth century by Franciscan friars who lined the walls with the bones and skulls of some five thousand people, as an invitation to meditate on the brevity of life. Above the entrance you can read: Nós ossos que aqui estamos pelos vossos esperamos, "We bones that are here await yours".
Also worth visiting are the Lóios church (São João Evangelista), entirely lined with eighteenth-century azulejos, and the chapel of São Brás, of 1480, which looks like a small Gothic-Mudéjar fortress.
Palaces, squares and the aqueduct
Praça do Giraldo, with its arcades and sixteenth-century fountain, is the heart of city life. Notable palaces include the Palace of the Dukes of Cadaval, the Galeria das Damas of Manuel I's royal palace, in a mixed Gothic, Moorish and Renaissance style, and the house where Vasco da Gama lived. The University, in the former Jesuit College of the Holy Spirit, has a large cloister and classrooms decorated with azulejos depicting scenes and figures from classical culture. In Largo das Portas de Moura there is a fine Renaissance fountain of 1556.
The Água de Prata aqueduct, built in the 1530s under King John III, brings water into the city from some 18 kilometres away; in the urban stretch, on Rua do Cano, houses are built between its arches.
Megaliths around the city
Around Évora lies one of Europe's most important concentrations of megalithic monuments. The Cromeleque dos Almendres, about 15 kilometres away, is a large enclosure of almost a hundred standing stones raised between the sixth and third millennia BC, one of the oldest in the Iberian peninsula; nearby stands the solitary Menir dos Almendres. Near Valverde is the Anta Grande do Zambujeiro, one of the largest dolmens in Europe, with a long corridor and a chamber of huge stones. A curiosity is the chapel-dolmen of São Brissos, a small white chapel built around an ancient dolmen.
Food and wine
Alentejo cooking is simple and full of flavour: carne de porco à alentejana, pork with clams and coriander, migas, made with bread and pork, açorda, a bread soup with garlic, olive oil and coriander, and sheep's cheeses. The Alentejo is also a great wine region: nearby, wines are made in the Évora, Borba, Redondo, Reguengos and Vidigueira areas, many of which can be tasted at the region's estates.
Évora is easy to reach from Lisbon by train or bus (about an hour and a half) or by car on the A6 motorway.