{"id":21966,"date":"2023-05-16T00:01:29","date_gmt":"2023-05-16T07:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=21966"},"modified":"2023-05-13T12:24:27","modified_gmt":"2023-05-13T19:24:27","slug":"evora","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2023\/05\/16\/evora\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00c9vora!"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Joe Berk<\/h6>\n

I know, we’re a motorcycle (and other interesting stuff) site, and you might be thinking this blog is going to be about a Lotus Evora (the Evora is a Lotus sports car).\u00a0 \u00a0The Evora is probably an incredible automobile, but that’s not why we are here today.<\/p>\n

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A Lotus Evora.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The word \u00c9<\/span>vora is a feminine word of Portuguese origin; it means “she who lives near yew trees.”\u00a0 That’s about as irrelevant as the big photo up top.\u00a0 But hey, we’re a motorcycle site, and who wouldn’t enjoy a photo of a Barbie-themed pink BMW cafe racer carousel ride?\u00a0 I saw those carousel Beemers as we walked into \u00c9<\/span>vora.\u00a0 They called out to me.\u00a0 I had to get a photo.<\/p>\n

But I digress: Our focus in this blog is indeed \u00c9<\/span>vora, but it’s not about the Lotus.\u00a0 It is about a small 2,000-year-old town in Portugal, a World Heritage Site, named \u00c9<\/span>vora.\u00a0 Before I get to the \u00c9<\/span>vora photos, let me digress a bit more and tell you about our stop as a gas station on the ride from Lisbon to \u00c9<\/span>vora.\u00a0 \u00a0That gas station had a magazine rack.\u00a0 They still do printed motorcycle magazines over there, you know.<\/p>\n

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Moto mags in Portugal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On to \u00c9<\/span>vora.\u00a0 One of our first photo ops was the Capela dos Ossos (the Chapel of Bones).\u00a0 It was one of many churches we would see on our travels through Spain and Portugal, but this one had a rather bizarre twist:\u00a0 The walls and columns are covered in bones.<\/p>\n

Yep, I said bones.\u00a0 Human bones.\u00a0\u00a0Weird stuff, this is.<\/p>\n

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An interior shot of the Capela dos Ossos. The little 18-55 Nikon kit lens was earning its keep.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The thigh bone’s connected to the hip bone…or something like that. Skulls, too. Go figure.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Capela dos Ossos is a small chapel (it’s located next to the larger Church of St. Francis), and it was built by Franciscan monks in the 16th century.\u00a0 I guess they wanted it to stand out, and to accomplish that, the guys dug up medieval cemeteries and used the bones from an estimated 5,000 dead folks as interior decor.\u00a0 It was weird, man.\u00a0 Bones.\u00a0 I tried to imagine the conversation hundreds of years ago that led to this decision.\u00a0 Sue and I have\u00a0 had interesting discussions about our interior paint and wallpaper choices.\u00a0 I get it that these decisions are not always easy and everybody has opinions.\u00a0 But bones?\u00a0 Those old Portuguesers must have had some spirited interior decor conversations.\u00a0 Paint?\u00a0 Nah.\u00a0 Wallpaper?\u00a0 Nah.\u00a0 Tiles?\u00a0 Maybe a little, but everybody’s done tiles.\u00a0 Bones?\u00a0 Yeah, that could work.<\/p>\n

All this kind of made me think about cremation as an alternative to burial, but I’m not going with either option.\u00a0 I’ve already left directions to my heirs.\u00a0 I’m going to be stuffed when I go.\u00a0 Stuffed with bullshit, and mounted in front of my laptop.\u00a0 You know…so I can keep writing the blog.<\/p>\n

One thing I love about travel anywhere is that it gives me lots of photo opportunities.\u00a0 Here’s another picture of a more conventional statue in the bone barn.<\/p>\n

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High ISOs, the 18-55mm Nikon lens, shooting in RAW, and Photoshop’s noise reduction filter brings it all home.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gresh asked me about two-stroke motorcycles in Portugal.\u00a0 The only one I saw was this older Z\u00fcndapp.\u00a0 It was very clean, it was plated, and it was obviously still in use.<\/p>\n

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An old Z\u00fcndapp still in use in Evora.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I would see a few more two-stroke motos in Spain, but two-strokes have pretty much had their day on the Iberian peninsula.\u00a0 Bultaco, Ossa, and Montesa (or was it Montessa?) are no more.\u00a0 Gresh loves his two strokes and he owns several.\u00a0 I’ve only had one, a BSA Bantam two-stroke.<\/p>\n

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An excellent resource: The Clymer BSA book<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My Beezer didn’t look anything like the one you see on the Clymer BSA book<\/a> above (which is an excellent reference, by the way).\u00a0 Mine was a clapped out, rattle-can black beater bike.\u00a0 \u00a0But it was fun and frisky and for a 175 it had power way out of line with its displacement.\u00a0 Maybe some day I’ll get another two-stroke motorcycle, but the odds are low.\u00a0 The way the world is going it’s more likely I’ll have an electric motorcycle first, but that’s a topic for a later blog.<\/p>\n

I’m digressing again.\u00a0 Back to the main attraction.\u00a0 Colors abound in Portugal.\u00a0 I grabbed this photo of a few plates on display.<\/p>\n

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Portugal’s photo ops abound.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As we walked through \u00c9<\/span>vora, the door handles and knockers caught my attention.\u00a0 Here are a few photos.<\/p>\n

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The macro shots of the door knockers were fun. Take my hand…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Another handy door knocker.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A set of stereo knockers. The one on the right sees the most use.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many of the doors were cool, too.\u00a0 I’ll show more of these photos in subsequent blogs.\u00a0 I took a bunch.<\/p>\n

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An impressive entry.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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And another.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Cork is a big industry in Portugal, and we saw many different cork products (cork bowls, cork pads, cork purses, cork hats, and more).\u00a0 Did you ever wonder where cork comes from?\u00a0 Cork is made from tree bark (something I did not know).\u00a0 The tree is called a cork oak, and the bark can be harvested every 9 years after the tree matures (the bark grows back).\u00a0 Spain and Portugal are the dominant suppliers.<\/p>\n

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Our local tour guide with a chunk of cork oak bark stripped from the tree. Who knew?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Cork hats and purses.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Cork bowls and spoons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00c9<\/span>vora is a colorful place.\u00a0 Walking \u00c9<\/span>vora’s narrow and climbing streets was fun, and the photo ops made it even more so.<\/p>\n

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Frida Kahlo?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00c9<\/span>vora dates to the Roman occupation of the Iberian peninsula.\u00a0 The remains of the Temple of Diana are on a hill overlooking the city’s center; the temple was built in the first century.\u00a0 It’s known today as the Temple of Diana, but that’s not what it was when the Romans built it.\u00a0 A 17th century priest, Father Manuel Fialho, is believed to be the person who tagged it as the Temple of Diana.\u00a0 It’s too bad we don’t do politics here on ExNotes; this story screams out for a Father Fialho comparison to Fox News or CNN (depending on which way you lean).<\/p>\n

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Roman ruins in \u00c9vora.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Portugal is a well-developed nation with excellent roads.\u00a0 I’d say it is better-maintained and cleaner than a lot of places I’ve been in the US.\u00a0 The expressways were every bit as good as ours, and other than the fact that signs were not in English and there was little traffic, the freeways were no different than the ones in southern California.\u00a0 \u00a0The climate is about the same, the towns and roads are much cleaner, and we didn’t see any homeless people.\u00a0 Prices on everything except gasoline were similar to those in the US (gas was around $8 per gallon), but the average wage is substantially lower (their average annual income is about a third of ours).\u00a0 Somehow they make it all work.<\/p>\n

The photo below shows the view from our bus just before we entered Spain.<\/p>\n

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Espana bound. Spain was a quarter mile in front of us. We didn’t need our passports to enter Spain nor did we need to stop. It was like driving across the state line between California and Arizona.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m skipping around a bit.\u00a0 There’s more to cover from our time in Portugal, and I’ll touch on that in subsequent blogs.\u00a0 For now, it was on to Spain.<\/p>\n

To be continued…<\/p>\n

\n

Please help keep ExNotes going.\u00a0 Visit our sponsors and click on the popup ads!<\/span><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Joe Berk I know, we’re a motorcycle (and other interesting stuff) site, and you might be thinking this blog is going to be about a Lotus Evora (the Evora is a Lotus sports car).\u00a0 \u00a0The Evora is probably an incredible automobile, but that’s not why we are here today. The word \u00c9vora is a … Continue reading “\u00c9vora!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,89],"tags":[672,3510,3509,3508,3514,3512,3312,3511,3513,2356],"class_list":["post-21966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feel-good-stuff","category-motorcycle-adventure-ride","tag-bsa-bantam","tag-capela-dos-ossos","tag-cork","tag-evora","tag-great-knockers-photos","tag-lotus-evora","tag-portugal","tag-the-chapel-of-bones","tag-two-stroke-motorcycles","tag-zundapp"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/DSC0405-900.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21966"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22074,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21966\/revisions\/22074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}