The last part of our trip was spent in the region of Portugal called the Alentejo. You can see this region covers a large portion of the country. It is very picturesque; after all, it produces a lot of the country's citrus, olives and wine. This region is also the world's most important area for growing cork. That's right, the cork that came out of the last bottle of wine you opened most likely originated in Portugal. Pretty convenient that an area known for great wine also has tons of cork trees.... The cork is stripped from the trees' trunks every nine years, with an average tree living about 200 years. It's also the only tree that isn't harmed by stripping its bark.
The place we stayed there was absolutely beautiful. It was out in the countryside, hidden from the roads, and again surrounded by vineyards and olive groves. It has to be the most peaceful place I've ever stayed. The only sound you heard besides the birds was the distant mooing of a cow. (Really.) Here are some pictures of the place.
The pool was so nice, and again we had it to ourselves!
We toured a winery and got some pictures with all the barrels and huge vats of wine. And of course, did some tasting.
We bought some wine at the tasting to go with our picnic dinner that night.
We had a fabulous dinner the second night at a restaurant that was inside an old prison next to the castle at the top of a pretty town called Estremoz. It may sound a bit strange, and you might think that it would be gloomy to eat inside what used to be a prison. But it was a very cute restaurant with a great atmosphere and amazing food.
See, it's not scary at all! I like how they echoed the prison bars in the backs of the chairs.
We were told that it was the best restaurant to eat at in the vicinity, but were warned that the food takes awhile to come out. Little did they know that we like to enjoy a long meal! Our meal included black pork, which is a specialty of the Alentejo region. The Portuguese really know how to do pork right. Since we've been living here, we have definitely experienced the best-tasting pork we've ever had. I don't have any pictures of our food, although it was worthy of photos.
How cool is it that to leave the city, we had to drive over a working drawbridge?
On our way back to Lisbon, we stopped in Evora, which has a beautiful Roman temple, built in the 1st century AD
My mom and sister had a chance to buy some cork souvenirs before we headed for Lisbon. They make some pretty cool stuff out of cork!
They had one more day to enjoy Lisbon before they headed back to the States. It was such a great trip, I'm thinking they need to come back next summer, and we'll do a similar trip through the northern half of Portugal. There's still so much left to see!
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