Portugal’s 'museum city'

Evora has more than earned its World Heritage listing, as Gemma Nisbet discovers in its old town

Standing in the Largo do Conde Vila Flor, the cobbled main square in the old town of Evora, the history of this ancient Portuguese city is arranged around us.

Dominating the square, the remains of an ancient temple are stark against the grey late-autumn sky. Dating from the first century, the temple was built by the Romans, who expanded the original Celtic settlement of Ebora after their conquest in 57BC. Behind this is another relic of this era, one of the few remaining portions of the city’s Roman walls.

Beside the temple is the neat, white facade of the Loios Convent, now a pousada, or historic hotel. The building was constructed in 1485, partly over the ruins of a castle dating from Evora’s 400 years of Moorish rule. Behind, there’s the St John the Evangelist church, built well after the Christian reconquest of the 12th century, and beyond that, the castellated facade of the Palace of the Dukes of Cadaval.

Behind us, there’s the Evora Museum, housed in a building that was used from the Middle Ages as the archbishop’s palace, a reminder of a period when the city was a thriving centre of education and the arts. Peeking above it are the two towers of the city’s cathedral, built after the reconquest and gradually added to and expanded on until the 18th century.

And, to the side, down a small slope, is a series of buildings associated with the Portuguese Inquisition, when a Court of Inquisition was based here to pass judgment primarily on the piety of Jewish converts to Catholicism.

Evora’s Roman Temple. Picture: Gemma Nisbet

Standing here, it’s easy to see why Evora is sometimes called “the museum city of Portugal”, and why its old town has UNESCO World Heritage listing. But Maria Jose, the local guide showing us around today, goes one better: “You can tell the whole history of Portugal just looking around here,” she says.

The Roman Temple — one of Evora’s best-known sights — is a particularly good illustration of this. As Maria Jose tells us, it was built by the Romans to symbolise the submission of the local residents to imperial rule. It’s often said to have been dedicated to Diana — goddess of the hunt — but Maria Jose, ever a stickler for the facts, says there’s no evidence this was the case.

After the Visigoths took the city from the Romans in the 4th century, many of the buildings that represented the empire were destroyed. The ruins of the temple were later incorporated into a medieval structure on the site — used, for a time, either as a butcher shop or a slaughterhouse. This conserved it until the 18th century, when the latter additions were removed and the temple restored. Today, 14 of its original 30 granite columns remain remarkably intact.

From the square, Maria Jose leads us down the hill, past a row of plane trees shedding their autumn leaves, to the Cathedral of Evora.

Work on the cathedral began shortly after the reconquest, led by Gerald the Fearless. It was built to be solid, Maria Jose says, to send a message of longevity — and indeed, Evora was never retaken by the Moors. The cathedral was enlarged about the turn of the 13th century, with various subsequent additions over time, so it’s something of a melange of historical styles and periods, not unlike the square outside.

Statue of a pregnant Virgin Mary, inside Evora Cathedral. Picture: Gemma Nisbet

The cathedral is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and walking down the central nave, Maria Jose stops in front of a statue of her, set on an altar. I’m too busy taking in the incredibly ornate, gleaming altar around it to notice what’s unusual about the statue until Maria Jose points it out — Mary is depicted heavily pregnant, apparently a rarity. She says this reflects the local importance of fertility cults, which date back to pagan times, when megaliths were constructed in the area for use in fertility rites (some of these stones can still be seen in the surrounding countryside).

Leaving the cathedral, we walk through old Evora’s narrow, cobbled streets, past white buildings with iron balustrades, until we reach the central square, the Praca do Giraldo. Named for the aforementioned Gerald (or Giraldo in Portuguese), the square was once the site of some fairly gruesome executions during the Inquisition. Today, though, it’s a pretty spot, filled with cafe seating and the smell of a street vendor roasting chestnuts, the handsome Church of St Andrew at one end.

The Church of St Andrew in Evora’s Praca do Giraldo. Picture: Gemma Nisbet

Walking a little more, we pass pastry shops and other independent stores, including more than a few selling items made from cork. I’d had a vague idea that cork was produced in this part of the world, but was unprepared for its sheer abundance in the souvenir shops. If I cared to do so, I could kit myself out along these streets in a full cork outfit. There are cork shoes and belts, handbags and suitcases, cork belts and jewellery, and a dazzling variety of cork hats including flat caps, bucket hats, baseball caps and more. One shop even has a cork ball gown; another displays a full-length cork mackintosh with matching hat.

Unconventional materials are also the order of the day at our final stop on Maria Jose’s tour, the Chapel of the Bones. The clue’s in the name, but I’m not quite prepared for what we find.

Every centimetre of the walls in the small chapel is thick with bones. Long bones, perhaps from legs, stacked with only one end showing. Skulls, their sockets gaping. Shorter bones — maybe arms — set in plaster to form arches. Bones running up the sides of pillars, set around the small windows, and along the ridges of the painted vaulted ceiling. One small patch, where the bones have been removed, presumably for restoration work, shows the layer of human remains to be as deep as the length of my arm.

Inside Evora’s Chapel of Bones. Picture: Gemma Nisbet

It’s macabre, but I don’t find it gruesome – there’s something compelling in the careful way the bones have been arranged, and the way they’re lit. Certainly the motivation behind the construction of the chapel seems to have been pure and spiritual. As Maria Jose tells us, it was conceived in the late 1500s by Franciscan monks as a place to meditate on the transitory nature of human life. Hence the warning above the door, which translates to something like “We bones that here are, await yours”.

It’s estimated there are about 5000 skeletons in here. While there has been speculation they belonged to the victims of a plague, or a war, the truth seems to be more mundane: the various cemeteries around Evora were getting too full, so bringing the bones here was a way to ensure they remained on consecrated ground while freeing up land being used for burial plots.

Houses are built into the aqueduct in Evora. Picture: Gemma Nisbet

On our final morning in Evora I have time for a last, brief wander through the old town. It’s early, and the streets are empty but for the occasional early riser. I walk quietly through the narrow cobbled streets near our hotel towards the aqueduct that dominates this part of town. It was, Maria Jose told us, built after the original Roman version was damaged in the 16th century and remained in use until the early 1900s.

Today I find little houses nestled in its arches, their facades forming neat semi-circles of white against the outline of stone. Some are worse for wear and boarded up. But many others are crisp and freshly painted, appearing lived in, their inhabitants quite literally surrounded by history — which seems appropriate, in Evora of all places.

Gemma Nisbet travelled as a guest of Insight Vacations.

FACT FILE

Luxury coach touring company Insight Vacations includes a stay in Evora in a number of its Portugal itineraries. For example, the 10-day Country Roads of Portugal tours spends two nights in Evora, alongside visits to Lisbon, Portimao, Tomar, Porto and the Douro Valley, and costs from $2625 per person twin share. insightvacations.com or 1300 301 672.