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Day 7: A Long Drive South

Overlooking Coimbra from the top of the elevator

We got up at 7:00 AM like usual, got breakfast, finished packing up our stuff, and checked out of the hotel.  From the hotel we started to drive south towards Evora, with a stop at Coimbra.  The stop at Coimbra was recommended by the tour company to see the oldest university in Portugal, established in 1290.   You need to take an elevator to get there or walk a very steep hill.  The main draw I think is the Baroque Joanina Library, which you get to spend 10 minutes in and not take any pictures.  Not taking any pictures sucks because it is a beautiful library, prettier than then one in Ireland.  We also got a tour of the old royal palace which was on the site before the university was established as well as the chapel.  It should be noted that the pipe organ in the chapel was meant for another larger church, so it is too big for the space.  If they play the pipe organ at full strength it breaks the plaster on the walls.   After the tour we walked around briefly but it was quickly getting hot, so I decided to skip the botanical gardens in the area, apparently, they are super hilly, and head back to the car.   

Pipe Organ in Chapel

Place Entrance now the University

We left Coimbra around 12:30 PM, from there it was three-and-a-half-hour drive down to Evora.   Unfortunately, I didn’t catch it when Google did the direction, half the route was freeway, the second half of the route was country roads, meaning going through little “towns”.  The only benefit was we got to see some of the countryside and cork farms.  We could tell they were cork farms by how the trees were stripped at the bottom and had numbers on them.  The numbers indicate what year the cork was harvested, they can harvest cork from the same tree every 9 years.     We did see some people harvesting cork, but I didn’t notice in time to get a picture.    We got into Evora around 4:15 PM.  We checked into the hotel and got food from a local pizza place.  The pizza was decent.  

Entering Evora. It is a Roman Aquaduct

Tomorrow, we have a walking tour of Evora, which includes seeing the Bone Chapel.  

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