We started Day 7 with hotel breakfast, which has become one of the great stabilizing forces of this trip. Wake up, eat eggs and bread and whatever pastry seems least mysterious, then figure out what version of the plan survives contact with reality.
After breakfast, we left our bags at the front desk and walked about 15 minutes to see Évora’s aqueducts.
The aqueducts are around 500 years old, which is impressive, although we heard “aqueduct” and kind of expected Roman. These were not Roman. It turns out people have built impressive old infrastructure during other periods of history too. Who knew!?
They were still very cool. The best part is that Évora just kind of absorbed them into the city. Buildings are built right into the arches. People walk under them. Cars squeeze through them in lanes that seem designed mostly to test your confidence and side mirrors. It’s the kind of thing that would be fenced off and over-explained in a lot of places, but here it’s just part of the neighborhood.
On the walk back to the hotel, we stopped for a little shopping. Aaron also successfully bought a Pepsi Zero using only Portuguese. He said a few words in Portuguese and then pointed with purpose. Still counts.
The night before, our Uber driver had suggested we check out some stone structures outside Évora that were supposed to be older than Stonehenge. That sounded exactly like the kind of weird historical detour we would enjoy, and it was only about 20 minutes outside the city. Even better, it was only a small detour from the two-hour-and-forty-five-minute drive to our next destination in the Algarve.
So we mapped it out and headed that way.
When we arrived where Google told us to go, it looked promising. There was a small museum shop, some displays, and enough official-looking signage that we assumed we were in the right place.
The displays talked a little about the stones, but they also showed a cave with early human drawings inside, plus a Roman villa connected to the house of Julia, as in Julius Caesar and Augustus. Suddenly we had three cool ancient things to see.
The catch was that all of them were about 20 minutes away from the place we were standing. Even the stones!
This became a theme. Everything was 20 minutes away. The stones were 20 minutes away. The cave was 20 minutes away. The Roman villa was 20 minutes away.
The woman inside explained that to see the stones, we would need to drive farther down a rough road, then hike. She also warned us not to drive too far because there was only one good spot to turn around, and our tiny rental car would not be able to make it past that point.
This was not exactly what we expected, but it still sounded fun. We changed into hiking shoes and started driving.
The road was rough and narrow, and every few seconds one of us would panic, “Is this the last place to turn around?!”
This was a bad energy to have on a narrow rural road in a small rental car.
After a few kilometers, we started reading Google reviews from people who had apparently made it farther than we had. The general vibe was that the stones were interesting, but maybe not worth the full expedition.
So we bailed on the stones and decided to go see the cave instead.
The cave was only another 20 minutes away, and it opened in an hour. Perfect. We could sit in the parking lot, cool down, and then go look at prehistoric cave drawings like cultured travelers who totally knew what they were doing.
Twenty minutes later, we were sitting in the cave parking lot.
That is when we read the part about reservations.
The cave was by reservation only. No same-day tickets.
So, 0 for 2.
At that point, we accepted the message the universe was sending us and started the drive to the Algarve.
Thankfully, the drive was beautiful and uneventful, which is exactly how we like drives to be.
When we got to our hotel, the day immediately changed tone. Our room had the best ocean view we had ever seen. It was full-on ocean, cliffs, and waves right from the room.
After Évora, the aqueducts, the failed stone expedition, the closed cave, and the long drive, we were very ready to enter the resort phase of the trip.
We sat in the jacuzzi on our balcony. We ordered room service. We looked out at the ocean and did absolutely nothing productive.
Then, because balance is important, we drove into town for late-night laundry.
I don’t care if we’re staying at a resort. Four euros to wash one of Aaron's seven-dollar t-shirts is too much.
Resort phase, yes. Financial discipline, also yes.
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