We spend a night in the the Alentejo region of Portugal in a tiny little town called Altivo. We stayed at the Horta de Vila which was a beautiful hotel surrounded by an immaculate garden/farm and stunning views.
I think we happened in there during their low time since we were the only people there, at least that night. We arrived around 8pm and dinner was served at 8:30pm. We walked into the dinning room and there was one table was set just for us.
We come to learn that everything provided to us at dinner was grown in their garden. We had a lovely tomato and cucumber salad with salt and olive oil. Ray had a steak and I got some local fish casserole along with a local bottle of wine.
It was perfect after a long day of diving and driving.
In the morning, we were awoken by a loud rooster crowing, can’t remember the last time one of those woke me up. After breakfast (also straight from the garden), we decided to walk around the hotel, checking out all the vegetables, fruits, flowers, and some animal friends too.
Josi, one of our chefs from last night, was already out tending to the green beans. He showed us all around one part of the garden, telling us what things were in Portuguese.
Then the hostess came out and walked us even further around the premises, showing us the olive trees… Apparently, the holes in the trunks of the trees are due to rabbits, but unfortunately we didn't see any of those little furry guys.
They had a small little chicken ranch, with a bunch of chickens and even turkeys running around. Found the animal responsible for waking us up this morning too!
On the other side, there were peacocks and their babies. They seemed to be quite shy so the only photos I have are of them running along the back wall.
We did run into some more of Pepe’s friends…
The pigs came running right at us since they thought we had oranges to give them. They literally just stood and stared at us all in a line. Hiding in the back were a bunch of little piglets. They were hard to get a photo of so I decided to try another angle. I walked around to the other side of the gate to get a better picture and walked right up to this guy, the main man of the farm, staring at me.
I did get a better shot of the little ones though! They were so cute, I absolutely loved all their spots.
Here’s Ray with our hostess and Josia.
We leave Alvito and head to Évora, pretty cool medieval town encircled with an old wall. They even had a street named after Ray…
Here’s a cool shot of the Igreja de São Francisco.
We didn't really know where were headed, just kinda walking through the streets and then we come across this…
The Templo Ramano (Templo de Diana) dates back to the 2nd or early 3rd century. These 14 Corinthian columns are some of the best preserved Roman monuments in Portugal and perhaps the entire Iberian peninsula. Those Romans sure left their mark everywhere!
Just in front of the columns was a beautiful lookout point, overlooking the entire city.
Here’s a picture looking back at the statue and just behind it are the Roman columns.
Here’s Pepe posing for a picture in front of the Se’.
More Roman ruins throughout the city, these baths were found inside the municipal building.
Oh yes, and while reading my Portugal book, it told me that we have to try a bifana while in the Alentajo. So since we were in that region we were also on a mission to try one. We stumbled into a place that had “bifanas” posted on their sign outside so we went in and got one of these… We weren’t terribly impressed, couldn't figure out the rave about them, but at least we tried one. (more on this story to come later)
Some cool street art…
After Évora, we head west just a bit south to one of my silly adventures. It’s a good thing my husband loves me and is willing to partake in the crazy ideas I come up with. Just outside of the city, there is said to be these Megaliths or “big stones”. They date back 5,000 to 7,5000 years ago and their meaning is still left unknown. Some say they are phallic, some form fertility, others believe it to anthropomorphic. Regardless, I was eager to see them. Luckliy, the path there was well marked so they weren't all that hard to find. We parked the car and walked down a trail to the rocks.
Suddenly, it was us and these large rocks, all standing somewhat in a circle. Some even had some designs in them that you could tell had been worn out over all these years.
It was pretty cool to see and also somewhat eery to be around when really not knowing what they meaning is. I decided to just embrace the quietness and tranquility of being in the middle of nowhere surrounded by neolithic remains.
One the way back, we came across another large rock, apart from the others. Apparently, during the summer solstice this rock lines up with the other ones, crazy!
Ray thinks it looks like a tongue. What do you think?
No comments:
Post a Comment