Today was Kaylea’s birthday, and thanks to our hot air balloon ride getting canceled, we got to start it the luxurious way: by sleeping in. All in all, not the worst consolation prize.
We had a slow breakfast at the hotel, then headed into Évora to see the cathedral. On the way there, we wandered through a little market street full of shops selling things made out of cork. Purses, hats, wallets, shoes, postcards, bowties, probably a full cork suit if you looked hard enough. Portugal takes cork seriously.
When we got to the cathedral, we found out the entrance was cash only, so we had to go find an ATM. But we came back. We are nothing if not determined tourists when there is a cathedral roof on the line.
The cathedral ended up being one of the highlights of the day. They let you climb up onto the roof, which sounds more exclusive than it is because they let everyone do it, but still. They let us onto the roof.
To get there, we climbed one of those tight, winding spiral staircases that seem to be hiding inside every old building in Europe. At the top, we walked around the roof for a while, took some pictures, tried to spot the winery from the day before, and Aaron did his best to keep his hat from blowing away. After that, we made our way down through the cloister. It felt a little Game of Thrones, a little Harry Potter, but mostly just very cool.
After the cathedral, we walked over to the Chapel of Bones.
It was exactly what it sounds like. A chapel made of bones. Skulls in the walls. Bones arranged into patterns. A reminder that life is short, death comes for us all. Nothing says “happy birthday” quite like a room full of human skeletons!
Since it was Kaylea’s birthday, we decided the day needed cake. Or pie. Key lime pie would have worked. Rhubarb pie would have been great. Really, any recognizable dessert would have done.
Aaron googled rhubarb pie and swears one place in Évora came up.
We ended up at a tiny bakery run by a tiny old woman and immediately realized we had no idea what anything was. The pastries in the case looked beautiful, but not familiar. Nobody behind the counter seemed to speak English, and we were too far in to casually escape.
While we were waiting in line, Aaron offered to leave and find somewhere a little more familiar. But we were already there. We were getting close to the counter. The social contract had been activated.
We had come too far to turn back, and then the tiny old woman was speaking to us in Portuguese and the opportunity to google any of the pastries had passed. The line behind us was building and we had to quickly use our broken Portuguese to order, answer the old women's questions, and try our best to understand her responses.
We thought we had picked the safest-looking options.
There was one pastry that looked like a tiny beignet, and the label looked vaguely beignet-adjacent. We know beignets. We trust beignets. Then there was another pastry that everyone else seemed to be ordering, covered in powdered sugar. That felt like a good sign.
The tiny beignets were not beignets.
They were more like orange-colored custard balls made with egg yolk. The powdered sugar pastry turned out to be a dense, chewy almond situation. Neither one was really for us, which was unfortunate.
Later we realized the bakery specialized in conventual pastries, which means pastries with roots in old Portuguese convents. So, not conventional pastries. Convent pastries. Medieval nun desserts.
That explained a lot.
We paid, left most of the dessert on the table, and walked back to the hotel feeling slightly defeated by history.
When we got to the room, the hotel had surprised Kaylea with a bottle of champagne and cake for her birthday, which was very sweet and immediately redeemed the dessert situation.
We finished the day with a nice dinner outside the city. It felt like the right ending to our random-exploration birthday celebration. No hot air balloon, no rhubarb pie, no familiar birthday cake. Just a cathedral roof, a chapel full of bones, confusing medieval pastries, and champagne in the hotel room.
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