The 16th-century monks of Évora knew life was short. As if to ram home the point, they decorated an entire chapel with bones dug up from the town’s overflowing cemeteries. The sign outside the Chapel of Bones roughly translates as “We bones in here wait for yours to join us”. Cheerful lot, those monks. Columns, walls, arches – all are covered in skulls, tibias, fibulas, clavicles. Rapt, I can’t stop staring, then start to chuckle when I see skulls curving round frilly frescoes of cherubim on vaulted ceilings, a whimsical touch of chintz among the ghoulishness.
Évora has me in its grip even before I come to the Chapel of Bones. This former royal city of Portuguese kings and capital of the Alentejo region has so many architectural and cultural treasures wedged within its historical centre that it’s often referred to as a living museum. But in a museum, you generally have to keep your voice down: here in Évora, there’s the buzz you get with 11,000 university students roaming round a Unesco world heritage site old town that’s encased within medieval walls.
I feel a pang of envy when I visit the 16th-century College of the Holy Spirit within the University of Évora, which is open to the public willing to pay €3 and take pot luck as to which of the ridiculously beautiful classrooms are free at that moment. My guide, Andre Birken, came to Évora from Germany as an Erasmus student years ago and decided to stay. Chilly northern Germany or laid-back southern Portugal, where even in late October it’s still 23C? Bit of a no-brainer, he tells me. He shows me classrooms decorated in the azulejo tiles for which Portugal is renowned, and where, if the lecture gets dull, you can lose yourself in bucolic blue-and-white scenes.
The ancient Romans, rather than the Greeks, left their mark on Évora in a more monumental style, including an enormous aqueduct that’s one of the first things visitors see as they approach the city. Rising in the centre of the old town are the 14 graceful Corinthian columns of the Roman temple built for emperor Augustus around the 1st century AD (and not, as is commonly assumed, dedicated to the goddess Diana). Surrounding it are buildings that typify most of the architecture here – low-slung, whitewashed, trimmed in ochre and usually sporting wrought-iron balconies. One of them is my hotel, a 15th-century former convent turned into the Pousada del Convento Évora. Every cobbled lane in the old town has this same style of architecture, and I find its uniformity immensely pleasing and harmonious – the white reflecting the sun, the mustardy ochre reminding me of the landscapes of the Alentejo around me, whose brownness is dotted with olive groves and cork forests.
And vineyards, of course, all of them blazing with autumnal colours. Alentejo is one of Portugal’s major wine regions, and its subregion of Baixo Alentejo will be 2026’s European Wine City. About 10 minutes’ drive from Évora is Fitapreta Winery, the brainchild of the innovative Portuguese winemaker António Maçanita and the British viticulturist David Booth. In 2015, Maçanita bought an old fortified manor house that had been in the same family since the 14th century, resurrecting ancient grape varieties, planting new vineyards and sticking to organic production. It’s an idyllic spot for a leisurely wine-tasting, followed by an even more leisurely lunch.
Within the modern winery (its facade clad in cork in a nod to Portugal’s millions of cork forests), André Alves leads me through a tasting of five of the winery’s 22 varieties – all indigenous. A deliciously bone-dry rosé (amusingly named Freshly Squeezed), a fresh-tasting orange-type wine that technically wasn’t an orange wine (A Laranja Mecânica) and the very elegant red Enxarrama all made me wish I had room to stash these in my luggage.
This is only the preamble. Sommelier Francisco Cunha of the winery’s A Cozinha do Paço restaurant then guides me into the part of the manor house that was originally the chapel, and whose galleried upper floor is one of the many atmospheric spots where they serve a seven-course lunch that deserves some serious Michelin attention. Braised fennel and a gorgeous sheep’s milk cheese sauce with turbot, and the famed black pig of the Alentejo paired with a cauliflower cream quenelle were exquisite.
In fact, excellent food is a given in Alentejo. At Enoteca Cartuxa near the Roman temple, they serve their own wines to go with plates of thin buttery slices of cured black pig and chorizo; not to mention the sublime Monte da Vinha sheep’s milk cheese that’s as gooey and as good as an Époisses. The venerable Restaurante Fialho comes out with classic Alentejo dishes done expertly: pigs’ cheeks braised in red wine melt in the mouth, and pork and clams unite in a piquant red peppery stew.
Évora’s food and wine alone make it a worthy holder of the 2027 European Capital of Culture title, even without its architectural marvels. Then again, Évora Cathedral is magnificent, with a typical mishmash of architectural styles, from romanesque and gothic to Renaissance and baroque. From here, it’s almost a rite of passage to walk down the narrow pedestrianised Rua Cinco de Outubro and its souvenir and craft shops wedged into white and yellow houses. Yes, it’s touristy, but delightful nonetheless, with cork handbags and ceramics actually made in Portugal.
This takes me to Évora’s historical heart, Praça do Giraldo, an expansive square filled with cafe terraces, arcaded shops, more of those lovely wrought-iron balconies and a huge 16th-century marble fountain that instantly grabs your attention. This is the spot for lazy and mild autumn mornings with a coffee and a pastel de nata custard tart or a cheesy tart called queijada de Évora, before heading off in search of more of the town’s oddities.
One in particular catches my eye: the row of very cute houses built under the 16th-century aqueduct Água de Prata, in the north-western part of the old town. I need more time here, yet I end up following the tourist trail out of Évora for a morning in the hilltop village of Monsaraz, right by the Spanish border. Here, in this all-white village, where craft boutiques and wine shops attract the tourists, it feels less real, more toytown. It’s all very pretty, and I even get a closer look at the beaches of Alqueva, western Europe’s largest artificial lake, just outside the village.
But I was missing Évora, which manages to hold on to its mellowness despite the growing number of tourists. I recall a chat with my guide, Andre, who mentioned the number of people who take day trips from Lisbon (only 90-odd minutes away) and tour groups who stop for a night or two. But they need four, five days, maybe a week, he says, to get the most out of it. I’m inclined to agree, as these too-short days fly by and I don’t get round to following the nature trails out of the town, or visiting all of the museums, or having another lazy coffee and eating a pastel de nata in the sunshine. Those monks were right: life really is too short.
The trip was provided by Kirker Holidays, which has three-night breaks at Pousada Convento Évora in November from £819pp, including breakfast, car hire and flights, although rail options are also available. Further information: visitalentejo.pt
