Touril to Evora

Today we travelled across the south of the Alentejo to the capital of the area, Evora. This is a town that we are already falling in love with. On the way we passed an archaeological site.

Superficially it appeared unremarkable, but then I was realised that I was looking at a Bronze Age burial site from the fifth century BC. All the more remarkable as it was unprotected in the middle of nowhere.

We stopped for lunch at the small town of Ourique where we had two baguettes, two waters and a coffee for just over €5, incredible. We arrived in Evora at around 4pm to a lovely welcome at the hotel. Our room is superb and the situation is great within the city walls. Evora is a town not much bigger than Scarborough, totally enclosed by fortified walls. A cathedral and university dominate it. I walked around and the whole place has a good feel. There was a lot going on, with pop-up markets, bands parading through the streets and many cafes.

 

In the evening we went to a restaurant, Momentos, that scored well on the Internet, we were not disappointed, due to my state of inebriation Marion is going to describe the experience for the blog.

How do I describe the delicious meal we had tonight?  Jorge, the proprietor of Momentos restaurant in Evora pulled no punches. " When you eat here you get no chips, no rice, no gravy. Everything is sourced locally" The result was a fabulous meal. We began with an amuse bouche of pumpkin and beans. Then cold soup - gazpacho for Nigel and pear and courgette for me. Then wonderful sardines in an almond crust with a variety of mushrooms tossed in herbs. We couldn't decide what to have for mains and asked Jorge for a recommendation and we had some sea bass and then slow cooked pork cheek and fillet. The wonderful thing was it came with a fab variety of perfectly cooked vegetables. We were stuffed but did try the special (and mercifully quite small!) cheesy muffin type cakes that were Jorge's mother's recipe. All this, with an extremely acceptable bottle of local red wine, made us feel we had dined out in style!  We have eaten very good food in Portugal, mostly very simply prepared, but this was a highlight. We couldn't help feeling that our friends Iain and Barbara would have loved it!