Portugal: Evora

Our next stop in Portugal on our 2007 trip was the town of Evora, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Evora cathedral is the largest in Portugal (which we took some pictures of but none of them do it justice ... the streets of Evora are so narrow that you can't get a picture with more than a little bit of the church in it at a time).

The two things we saw in Evora that I found the most interesting were the Roman ruins and the Chapel of Bones (not connected to the cathedral mentioned above but to a different church, the church of Saint Francis). It's a neat town to wander around in as well and it has a 9km long aqueduct and some other minor sites of interest and churches but it's not very big and we did everything we wanted to in less than 2 days.

Here are some of the Roman ruins, we took pictures at night and during the day:





There was a little park in Evora as well which was filled with peacocks (and some more ruins).





And then there is the Chapel of Bones. It is indeed a chapel made out of human bones. You kind of have to see it for yourself so I won't give too much away here but this is what the walls look like:





There were an estimated 5,000 bodies used in the walls and pillars. They are not from any specific war or battle but are simply all of the people buried in Evora over the years leading up to the 16th century when the chapel was built. Apparently the cemeteries in Evora took up too much valuable space so the monks there decided to consolidate them all into one and to use the bones to build a chapel that would remind people of the inevitability of death. There are several full bodies hanging on the walls as well:



and the inscription when you enter the chapel reads, "We the bones which are here, for yours await."