A hefty fine , corks, and hefty monoliths - Evora to Lisbon
25 October
Our GPS Maria guided us on to a road which we thought avoided the tolls, and would give us a scenic route. Great drive west through fields and fields of olives and cork trees, with distant views of white hilltop towns and castle walls on the horizons.
As we neared Lisbon, the toll booth approached- the unsmiling officer asked for our ticket. We pleaded ignorance and foreignness- no messing with him, $70 cash please. Later I read in the guide book, that it is “strictly forbidden” to drive a toll road without a ticket. We will not do it again. Paying a $3-5 toll is a much better idea. It was bread and jam for lunch today, not our usual menu del dia, about $16-20 each.
Hefty monoliths were on our itinerary as we negotiated the narrow twisting streets of the Jewish quarter of beautiful, enchanting Evora. The colours of yellow, blue and white sat so well with the old stone buildings, and echoed the azure sky, (‘blue’is azul in Portuguese)and golden leaves of the autumnal plane trees.
Along the country road towards Guadalupe we saw our first cork trees- gnarled and twisty like olives, but with a big difference. The bark is stripped off every ten years, to make products of cork. Each tree has a bare reddish trunk, and a bold white number to tell its date of harvest. In the shops we had seen not only mats, decorated corks, and toys, but also exquisite handbags, and hats of fine soft cork sheets, spoons and cooler bags- insulated lunch boxes. Corks are a major industry. It is now easy to understand the resistance to screw caps for wine bottles.
The Portugese version of Stonehenge is easily accessed up a smooth dirt track through a private estate of cork trees with goats resting in their shade, their bells chiming peacefully. About 100 human height stones in a rough circle on a hillside, calm, mysterious, keeping their astral and religious secrets. A little group of itinerant artists and jewellers had set up camp for the tourist trade and Rosemary bought a silvery rhodium bracelet from Italian Carlotta, and I bought a red stone and silver necklace. My first souvenir.
On the way down the track we deviated up to a huge stone phallus, which apparently is in line with the other standing stones at certain times of the year. Always the questions are how did these people manage to convey massively heavy rocks across such distances, and why was it so important to do so? The answers are only speculation.
Anyway we conveyed ourselves very comfortably, if expensively, in our Peugeot to the main square of Lisbon, Placa Dom Pedro iv, to meet up with Luciano, who guided us through yet more winding lanes, to our apartment in the Russio district.
Key words monoliths, toll roads, cork