2016.09.24 (Lisbon – Évora)
As we discussed over breakfast at a nearby bakery, we could have easily stayed an extra day or two in Lisbon but we had already made commitment to our next destination: Évora. Paulo, our apartment owner, showed up at 11am in time for our check-out. He graciously drove us to the nearby bus station. The one and half hour bus ride to Évora was pleasant as we took the two front seats for the third bus ride with Rede National Express – the perk of making ticket purchases on-line as we could select our seats. In Évora, we walked 15 minutes from the bus station to our hotel in the historic center of town. After some rest on our balcony, we went out to visit a well known bakery for some coffee and cake. Upon our return, we completed our travel arrangements for our next segment after which we went for an early supper. Back at our room we relaxed on our balcony till dark.
2016.09.25 (Évora)
As it was Sunday, we expected the small town of Évora to be fairly quiet today. We caught the hotel breakfast before it closed at 10am. Although the Roman infrastructure still standing in the historic center of town were significant, they were visited fairly quickly as their location was compact. After seeing remnants of the Roman wall, we opted to walk on the outskirts of a 17th century Portuguese wall surrounding the historic part of town. Along the way, we stopped for some groceries and beverages. We relaxed for most of the remainder of the afternoon. We opted for a sushi buffet for supper to compensate for yesterday’s disappointing tapas. Jenny and I agreed that Évora would be best done as a day trip from Lisbon.
2016.09.26 (Évora – Salema)
After an early wake up, we had our breakfast at the hotel and took a taxi to the train station for our 9am departure. After three trains and one bus ride, we arrived in Salema, a small fishing/tourist village on the south coast of Portugal known as the Algarves. It seemed like a popular retirement destination for many Europeans, namely the British. Thinking that the most challenging part of our long travel day was behind us, we discovered in Salema that finding our apartment proved to be the most frustrating part. Who would think that finding an apartment in a small village would be a problem? Not me! I had my offline map application Maps.Me showing our apartment right in the middle of the village. After turning in circles for 15 mins we started to ask some locals about our apartment but we were being sent in different directions – until an old villager said he knew where it was and even offered to bring us over, but as we quickly discovered, he was not walking overly fast and we estimated that at his pace we would possibly make it after dark. Hence, we thanked him and only inquired about the direction. The elderly’s directions, with some additional local inquiries, helped us to locate our apartment. Although the beach looked really inviting, the winds were very strong late in the afternoon. When we headed out for supper at 7:30, we ended up returning to our apartment with a seafood pizza. That proved to be a great idea as we were both tired from the long traveling day. The good side of the day was that our apartment was a studio with a nice [partial] ocean view. Later at night, I provided some updates to OpenStreetMap.org (source of Maps.Me) with a more accurate location of our apartment.
[no pictures that day… who would believe it!]
