Category: Alentejo

We arrived in Beja, Portugal in time to set up camp and explore the historic town. Beja was the biggest town of any we had visited since leaving Lisbon at the beginning of the week. It also had plenty of charming cobblestone streets and a castle.

We explored a bit and settled in for a dinner at a recommended restaurant. So far, all of our meals have cost less than ten euros. This restaurant looked extra fancy, but the price range turned out to be in line with all the other places we had been eating. Oddly, we were presented with big menus and plenty of options, but after attempting to order something, I was quickly corrected and told that only six items were actually available at that time.

The campsite was nothing but dirt next to busy roads and a football stadium, but I survived through the use of my earplugs. By morning it was pouring rain and we needed to get back to Lisbon so my fellow travellers could fly back to Canada the next morning.

Woke up early with the intention of hitting the highway, but realizing we needed breakfast and groceries, we found ourselves making another visit back inside the walled city of Évora. This time we drove and parked just outside the gates.

All stocked up, we got out of town and headed for Spain – making a stop along the way in the tiny village of Vendinha. We picked up that almost every town has a central square with free-flowing drinking water, so we filled up our jugs for the next day’s supply. We also discovered wine is very cheap – and doesn’t seem to cause migraines, so we were making sure we always had a bottle for meals.

After more coffee stops along the way, we pulled into the small village of Mourão for a homemade lunch and a bit of a snoop. Another gorgeous little-cobblestoned town with a castle on a hill overlooking the area. It seems every town has a castle of varying upkeep dating back to medieval battles between Spain, Portugal, and Moroccans.

Not being sure on the cost of entry to the Castelo de Mourão, we decided to just sneak up and walk around the perimeter to see what it was like for free. When we got around to the front, we discovered it was wide open for anyone to explore with medieval spiral staircases that led us up to the tops of the towers and castle walls. It was full of grazing sheep and had the usual church inside – which was still being used by the community. It was a very cool and unexpected find.

After we satisfied ourselves with the town of Mourão, we crossed into Spain. Expecting to find some sort of passport control, we simply saw a sign marking the country boundary instead.

After a quick and early breakfast, we left the chilly Atlantic coast and headed inland for the warmth of southern Spain. We found ourselves driving on many brand new and deserted multilane highways over long expensive bridges to get around to the east side of Lisbon. Eventually tired of the multilane highways, we decided to try out some back roads for the last third of our journey to see the real Portugal. We found many cork tree farms and eucalyptus plantations and explored a few. We also made the obligatory stops for Portugal espresso coffees and custard pastries a few times.

By midday, we arrived at our destination for the night. It was the beautiful town of Évora. Évora is another UNESCO World Heritage Site surrounded by medieval walls and containing many narrow cobblestone streets, cathedrals, and even Roman ruins. Not a place to even think about driving a campervan, we instead explored the tiny laneways for the for rest of day on foot. The Roman ruins were my first and were amazing to see and think about the builders thousands of years ago. We managed to get on top of the highest cathedral for a good look around the city and surrounding countryside. A very beautiful place.

Before heading back to our campsite, we had a crazy dinner with wacky waiters at a weird restaurant in the walled city. So far, I have not been too impressed with Portuguese cooking: Big on meat, not so big on vegetables. The meat always brought out very undercooked as well, seemingly being merely blanched before being served.

19,000 steps later, I was back in my tent at our campsite – which was a hike in itself outside of the walled city.