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05
Sep 13

Évora

Thursday
The big “drive to the south” day, broken only by a visit to the medieval gem of Évora town. Do I need to say it’s another UNESCO site?

This museum-city, whose roots go back to Roman times, reached its golden age in the 15th century, when it became the residence of the Portuguese kings. Its unique quality stems from the whitewashed houses decorated with azulejos and wrought-iron balconies dating from the 16th to the 18th century. Its monuments had a profound influence on Portuguese architecture in Brazil.

Cathedral of Évora

Cathedral of Évora

Central nave of Évora Cathedral

Central nave of Évora Cathedral

Yellow Evora Streets

Yellow Evora Streets

We saw most of the sites in Évora, except for the ossuary, which neither of us had any interest in seeing, because ewww.

Rooftop panorama

Rooftop panorama

Evora Cathedral Cloisters

Evora Cathedral Cloisters

Gina and the Cathedral towers

Gina and the Cathedral towers

Cathedral Rooftop

Cathedral Rooftop

Roman Temple of Évora

Roman Temple of Évora

In the afternoon we made it all the way to Vila Nova de Milfontes, a chilled out beach town, where we intend to spend a day of beach relax tomorrow. In the evening we went to a grilled fish restaurant beautifully located on the beach, and had some huge grilled sea breams, which were delicious.

Grilled sea breams at Vila Nova de Milfontes

Grilled sea breams at Vila Nova de Milfontes

Travel — No Comments
05
Sep 12

Milan to Madonna di Campiglio

Our next destination was the fashion and design metropolis that is Milan! I *think* we had a leisurely morning over in Levanto, and slowly cruised up with Claude to the big city.

I loved Milan. A very beautiful city, and it seemed there was a lot going on here, but we didn’t fancy hanging around too long, as we’d been watching the weather all week – and we’d spotted that the weather in the mountains was now clearing up, and it looked like there was glorious sunshine up North. After all, this was supposed to be a Ferrata trip!

We arrived at Milan at around 14:00, and the first stop was the glorious Cathedral square.

Milan Cathedral

Gina’s Lomography

The Cathedral was mighty impressive, the facade was in-sane. So much detail, with crazy statues and gargoyles decorating the whole thing. We spent a good few minutes walking around the square, admiring the impressive front before heading inside for a ground floor tour – which was impressive! The quality and detail on everything was spectacular!

Detail: Stained glass windows

Detail: Facade statues

We then decided to potter around the centre a bit, just to experience what Milan had to offer, and came aross the mighty ‘Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II’ one of the world’s oldest shopping malls – and was filled to the brim with designer fashion shops. From here, we headed back towards the Cathedral for a few more pics, back to Claude, as we had an epic journey on our hands – back to the Dolomites!

Gina, Diana and the Cathedral

Iest and the Cathedral

Ahead of us we had a 4 hour car journey from Milan to Madonna di Campiglio – back towards Lake Garda and up high into the Dolomites. Once we reached the mountains, it became really dark – and I was driving through a massive thunder and lightning storm, it was incredibly dramatic. we found ourselves a nice camping spot, and settled down to the sound of distant thunder – hoping that the weather reports were correct for the next coming days.