Across Portugal powered by ice cream and Pastela de Nata

Setubal to Evora

Day 5 - Friday - June 17
We have decided that all graffiti artists around the world go to the same school . The tiger was a nice touch though.

Log truck Portuguese-style. We saw many, many loads of eucalyptus go by. It was our smell of the day. We even saw a mill. It was making chips but we aren't sure what they are doing with this pole-sized eucalyptus.

The other forest product that seems to be common here is cork. This bark is where your natural wine bottle corks start out.

Empada (pastry filled with pork), pastela de nata and ice tea are becoming staples for lunch with ice cream as a mid-morning snack.

We arrived in Montemor O Novo and were looking for a room. This guy just happened to have one 3 doors down from where he is standing. There is a very small sign just above his head. We were a bit skeptical but Donna went to check it out and.........

........hidden behind the plain door and up the stairs was this very nice suite at a very reasonable price. We said "Yes" and were very glad that we did. It had 2 nice little balconies where we could people watch with impunity, especially in the pasteleria across the street.

We had dinner at the Chinese restaurant down the street. This is what the pineapple and chicken dish looked like.  We are finding that the portions here are large and often we can share one dish between us.

Day 6 - Saturday - June 18 - Happy Birthday Jeanne Marie
The pasteleria across the street was also a great place for breakfast. Everyone in the place did their best to help us out with our language disability. It was a lot of fun.

About an hour on the road Donna noticed that her odometer was about to hit a milestone so she just had to take a picture.

This is the St. Sophia church. The village only had  2 streets and this church occupied most of one of them. Even this tiny  place had a cafe just around the corner. We didn't check it out.

We arrived in Evora just after noon. This wall was built by the Romans. First stop was the Turismo, a good place for information, a map and for looking for potential places to stay.

Pork is very popular as evidenced by this art display in the main plaza. It was popular with kids of all ages, including us.

Miss Piggy's rival??

The Cathedral of Evora......a relatively young building being only about 200 years old.

The "greeters"

Our sound of the day was the bells tolling 4pm. We could feel the reverberations for at least a minute after they stopped tolling.

Dad was trying to be helpful though he seemed to be making the wedding dress come apart in the process. We aren't sure how she and the other female guests are going to make it walking in very high and skinny heels on these cobblestone streets but they were sure teetering from everywhere for the ceremony.

Carriage rides are available if you tire of walking.

This is a typical street in the historic section of town. This part of Evora is a World Heritage site.

Day 7 - Sunday - June 19 - Happy Father's Day Doug
The Santa Clara Best Western. We were actually amazed that we had found it on the first try yesterday since street signs are hard to find and the entrance was so understated. The clerk had pretty decent English and was very patient with our questions about different words that we had found we needed.

Before leaving town, we took in the Roman Aqueduct. It runs for a couple of miles outside of town.