In March, while we were back home in Australia, we spent an afternoon with Mum, planning our trip around Spain and Portugal. Of course, we all had cities that were already on our personal agendas. Barcelona, Madrid, Cordoba, Granada, Seville were all instantly placed on the itinerary. To plan the rest of the route, we skimmed the guidebooks and looked at the places in between the must-dos. That's how Évora made the cut.

Below is the paragraph that tempted us to Évora:

"What draws the crowds though is the Capela dos Ossos, a mesmerising memento mori (reminder of death). A small room behind the altar has walls and columns lined with the bones and skulls of some 5000 people. ... There's a black humour to the way the bones and skulls have been carefully arranged in patterns, and the whole effect is strangely beautiful."

Chapel decorated with Bones! Gross!

The chapel was definitely an eerie place. Bones cover the walls and thousands of skulls feature in the decorating. This means a lot of empty eye sockets are staring at you as you walk through.

The monks who created the church thought that the chapel would be an ideal place to think about the fleeting nature of life and to help one reduce the focus on material possessions. Death is certainly something that is on your mind in a room full of bones. This message is emphasised by the greeting that welcomes you to the chapel... "We bones in here wait for yours to join us."



More photos on Flickr...

We have returned from our Iberian odyssey. We actually returned a day earlier than we had planned. Someone accidentally booked us onto a flight on the Thursday instead of the Friday. (oops!) Luckily we figured this out before we missed the plane.

The extra day has been a blessing in disguise. We've had time to do some laundry, grocery shopping, plan for a dinner party and generally prepare for the arrival of the Mother (and TD). Although, the place looked tidier when we walked in the door then it does now. (I can imagine there will be some hurried shoving of mess into cupboards tomorrow.)

I'll leave you with some photos of Andrew and I enjoying Pastéis de Nata (what we call Portuguese tarts in Australia.) I think we enjoyed a little too many of these while we were in Portugal. They are delicious and are definitely worth the extra calories. Luckily Lisbon is very hilly; hopefully we worked some of those Natajoules off.