Évora: Hot, Blue and 32

So. What Do You Do With A Leftover Roman Aquaduct?

In Évora there’s this great long, still intact aquaduct that was built by the Romans many years ago. It’s still standing and by all accounts looks to be in excellent condition. After checking out the city sites, which are pretty good, we decided to walk the length of the aquaduct and see what’s happened to it over the past two millennium. 

Things kind of got rolling when we found this portion of the aquaduct in town. 

And then as we walked along its path we discovered that many businesses had built themselves into each of the arches. Quiet ingenious!

A side road into a parking lot and another part of the city.

Then to our surprise we found a series of residences built into the higher arches. Very thoughtfully done! 

Of course there was another major artery inside the city walls. Can’t enter from this side, just the other direction.

Becoming a bit hungry from all our efforts in the heat we stopped and spit a nice fire baked pizza. And we found ourselves incorporated in the city walls! 

As we left the old city and crossed the ring road and into the heat from the blazing afternoon sun, we came upon a 16th century fort which had also found a way to include the aquaduct into its design. Pretty smart we thought, or at least I did. In one end...

...and out the other.

Eventually we came upon a beautiful nunnery which had used the aquaduct as its front gate and supporting wall for its domestic animals. Pretty efficient! 



Neil and Sarah, they had a nice grove of Plane Trees by the front gate. I wondered if we could find one of these in Canada? Notice the fencing built into the aquaduct. Pretty smart! 

There was a guard tower at one point built on top of the aquaduct. Pretty smart, but I started to have my first doubts.

Then you could see where the aquaduct had been used as a gate in the distant past. A Christian icon had even been built into the pillar. But still I was doubting, though these adjustments do sometime occur.

As we got further and further out of town we started to pass through some rural villages. The agricultural and animal husbandry processes started to also use the wall. Sheesh it was hot! 

And there was a nice grouping of flowering cacti which was using the shade and dew provided by the aquaduct. The bees were certainly happy about this!

We noticed a really nice tower which perhaps the Moors used to keep an eye on their aquaduct as history passed it along to their care.

However, the very best was waiting for us at the end of our aquaduct walk. There was a beautiful monastery waiting for us. One of those lovely things one discovers on a spontaneous, mindful walk. 

Simple, elegant and unfortunately closing just as we arrived. Oh well. It was all about the walk and discovery.

Then there were the views back towards Évora. Some with flowers on the walls.

Others without.

And then we started the long walk back to town. Sunny, hot walk, but we were both satisfied with what we’d found.

However, as I wrote this and went through my photos, the doubts I’d experienced on the walk began to surface. The design, guard towers and style just didn’t quite add up. I’ve seem many Roman aquaducts in my travels. I checked in with Mr Google and low and behold it turns out that this Roman aquaduct isn’t quite as old as I first thought. As a mater of fact, the Romans were long retired and living underground in Rome when it was built! Here’s what I found,

The construction of Agua de Prata Aqueduct was started by King João III in 1532. Under the direction of the royal architect Francisco de Arruda, 11mi (18km) of aqueduct were built starting in Divor estate, where it gets its supply of water, to the centre of Evora.

Oops. Things did seem a bit off, but I’d written most of the blog before properly researching my topic! Sorry Ken, cutting a few corners. Well, we did have a great walk and saw lots of interesting things. And it could have been Roman!