Evora

Day 2 in Portugal and we drove to Evora about an hour’s drive from Lisbon.  On the way there we saw cork trees growing, for which Portugal is famous.  Evora is a beautiful old town that had an important role in Jewish history in Portugal.  In the 15th century it had the largest Jewish population in Portugal (ca. 4,000) and had a large Juderia.  Since the King liked to vacation in the town he was glad to have his many Jewish assistants live there. That was until he decided to force the Jews to give up Judaism and convert to Christianity.

The King's brother became the Head of the Inquisition in Evora and was especially cruel in mistreating the conversos, Jews who had been forcibly converted to Christianity. Passing the Roman remains we went to the main town square, Giraldo Square, where the headquarters of the Inquisition had been and where they burned the Jews at the auto-da-fe, where Jews were given the last chance to recant before being burnt alive. We sat there and ate our lunch, strange feeling, everything around was normal.  Both the Jewish victims and the hateful perpetrators would not have believed this outcome.

We then visited the town library that had been a private scholarly library founded several hundred years ago.  In their vault they had an original volume of a book published in 1496 by Abraham Zacuto who was an advisor to the King and a famous mathematician.  He compiled tables of data that enabled many navigators to successfully expand the Portuguese empire.  But, even he had to flee to avoid forced conversion.  He escaped to N. Africa and then to Holland.  It was a privilege for us to see this original book, usually kept in a safe. 

We returned to Lisbon and that night we went out to hear Fado music, the authentic voice of Portuguese culture, in an area known as the Bairro Alto.

Day 3 and we drove west from Lisbon to the farthest western point in continental Europe.  En route we stopped in the beautiful little city of Sintra, where we toured the former Royal Palace that was a vacation home to many Portuguese Kings.  On the very top of the hill, which we didn't visit, was the Moorish Castle from which the Arabs controlled the area for 300 years. 

Then we drove to Cabo Roca (Rocky Cape) where many of the adventurous sailors went to pray as they stared across the Atlantic Ocean into the unknown.  It is a very remote and wild area with very high cliffs.  But driving a little along the coast from there we came to the wonderful little holiday resort of Cascais (pronounced Cashcaish), where we stopped to have lunch and sat in the sun by the beach.  By the way the weather has been perfect for touring, except the wind was very strong at Cabo Roca.

We continued along the coast to Estoril, past the famous casino, and along the Tegus River back to Lisbon.  Tonite is Shabbat, so we are walking to the kosher restaurant to have our Shabbat meal.  The synagogue Shaare Tikvah is just around the corner from there.  It is quite large but very discrete and has good security.