St. Dennis Adventures

I love walled towns. The romanticism of being in a city entirely surrounded by walls invokes the sense of actually living the history of that place -- of being part of something older than you can imagine.  Evore is one of those places. We managed to book a nice AirBnB just inside the walls, We had to park in a lot outside the walls and bring our luggage in through the city gates along narrow cobblestone streets to our apartment where we were met by our host Natalie. She gave us the keys and showed us to our suite which was pretty much the entire second floor -- large bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen / sitting area. Evora is a whitewashed town of narrow streets, cobblestone lanes, and a working city mixed with historical sites. It has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1986. Évora has a history dating back more than five thousand years. It was known as Ebora by the Celtici, who made the town their regional capital. Ebora was the plural form of the celtic word for Yew,...

When we were leaving our hotel in Coimbra, the front desk gentleman inquired where we were going next.  We mentioned we were planning on spending the day in Obidos, then heading to Evora.  He insisted that we visit a small community called Monsaraz outside of Evora -- he swore it would be unforgettable! Evora sits close to the center of where the drainage basins of the three largest rivers in Portugal touch.  This made Evora an essential meeting point to the early megalithic tribes who travelled the rivers for transportation, food, and trade.  To mark this important tribal meeting point, many megaliths were built in this area.  Today you can visit more than 10 megalithic enclosures, more than 100 isolated menhirs, about 800 dolmens and close to 450 megalithic settlements. In addition to these, there are about 100 rocks with dimples (their functionality is still a mystery). The Almendres Megalithic settlement (or cromlech) is the biggest megalithic monumen...

The town of Óbidos is located on a hilltop, encircled by a fortified wall. Óbidos remains a well-preserved example of medieval architecture; its streets, squares, walls and its castle are a popular tourist destination. The castle now houses a hotel.  Legend holds that Obidos was founded in 308 BC by the Celts. As the streets of Obidos are very narrow, cars are parked outside the walls -- we were able to park right next to the very cool preserved aqueduct. Originating in Usseira, the aqueduct it is 3 km long. Queen Catarina commissioned its construction In the 16th century, . The water was carried through a great number of high arches which crossed extensive vineyards and orchards and came to provide water to the town's main fountains. The Castle of Obidos has walls that date back to at least the 8th century AD with parts of the walls actually include some of the fortifications of the original settlement that may date back to the 4th century BC.  A interestin...

Coimbra has been called A cidade dos estudantes (The city of the students ) or Lusa-Atenas (Lusitan-Athens ), mainly because it is the site of the oldest and one of the largest universities in Portugal – the University of Coimbra, a public university whose origins can be traced back to the 13th century. Nowadays, it has students from 70 different nationalities; almost 10% of its students are foreigners, making it Portugal's most international university. Coimbra is about 90 minutes south of Porto and is where we decided to spend a day on our way to Evora.  Of course, being the home of the oldest university in Portugal, visiting the university was high on our list. The University of Coimbra was originally established in 1290 in Lisbon, and then moved permanently to its current location in 1537. On 22 June 2013, UNESCO added the university to its World Heritage List.

The Douro Valley could as easily be called the enchanted valley, such is the beauty and magic that its landscapes offer. Departing from Porto, where the river flows into the sea and where the Douro wines (table wines and Port wine), produced on its hillsides also end up, there are various ways to get to know this cultural landscape, listed as a World Heritage Site. We went by road ... and found many distracting stops along the way. For any wine to be called Port, it must be produced in an area in the Duoro valley. We took some backroad small highways and entered the valley down a narrow gravel road which passed several wineries and vineyards. The large clusters of grapes were hanging right there outside the windows of the car so of course, we had to stop and try some.  The grapes were very tightly clustered and we decided, after several samples, that the green grapes were by far the best grapes we'd every tasted The highway travels along the river and crisscrosses it s...

Porto , also known as Oporto in some languages, is the second-largest city in Portugal and was proclaimed a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1996, as "Historic Centre of Oporto, Luiz I Bridge and Monastery of Serra do Pilar" . The history of Porto dates back to around 300 BC  Celtic people being the first known inhabitants. Ruins of that period have been discovered in several areas. In 1387, Porto was the site of the marriage of John I of Portugal and Philippa of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt; this symbolized a long-standing military alliance between Portugal and England. The Portuguese-English alliance (see the Treaty of Windsor) is the world's oldest recorded military alliance. Dom Pedro I (12 October 1798 – 24 September 1834), nicknamed "the Liberator", was the founder and first ruler of the Empire of Brazil. As King Dom Pedro IV, he reigned briefly over Portugal, where he also became known as "the Liberator" as well as "the Sol...