Alentejo_Travelling my own Country

Ir para fora cá dentro.
That's how the Portuguese expression goes for when you travel inside your own country. And if my memory recalls well that became an idiomatic expression after a national tourism TV add some 10 years ago (or so I think - - how long does it statistically take to integrate a slogan in a language?).

PORTUGAL. My country. And exactly the one I learned to appreciate the lesser. I am ashamed of that, of not taking interest for it, of always looking at the less brighter side when it comes to Portugal:
- Melancholic; - Nostalgic; - Pessimistic ... and many inevitably negative "-ic-ending" words.
Ashamed of always looking at it exactly in the way I criticize "the Portuguese" for.

Well I feel I'm for the first time really willing to know the country I've always felt like mine only in one third - along with CAPE VERDE and BRAZIL.
This is after having come from India (in which I found so many worse - not even comparable - conditions)... And after that Johan came. And now I have a Swede to introduce my large home to, great loving company for tourism!

So this time we went to High Alentejo, interior Portugal.
Our base was Portel, a small village in the district of Évora, which is litteraly the centre of a star when it comes to road access.
This is a quiet place where people stare at you (and still keep looking when you've given in and taken your eyes away... :) ) 'coz everyone knows each other and you're not from there. And they're curious: that's simply it. A simple place.
It is amazingly silent all day long, hardly any cars, small white-painted houses ('coz the sun heat is so strong in the summer), real darkness at night; cows, sheeps, goats... just near by; breakfast with home-made cookies . . . And here cold is cold, homes have an inheritance of hunting prizes hanging form the walls, bread is "alentejano" and comes in special colourful coton bags, and you greet everyone in the street. A van passes by in the morning issuing the sound of folk music and offering home delivery of bathrobs, pijamas and other housewear. Somewhere in the village pigs scream, chickens run, horses grass (so silent it is that you can feel Portel's heart-beat if you simply keep quiet). Plus the view from the castle is amazing, a mixture of plain greens, and you almost feel the smell of olives and grapes.

We ate well and fat, and in the meantime we visited the biggest artificial lake in Europe - Alqueva Dam, ate at Amieira Marina, drove to Reguengos de Monsaraz hoping to buy wine only to find a beautiful modern-shaped church, and enjoyed a great wintery sunny day where the sun insisted on touching the waters beautifully.
On Sunday, Valentine's Day, time for the ditrict capital: Évora. The place for lunch was tough to find but in the end "Almedina" surprised us with a cosy family environment. We had time for a stop at Arraiolos as the car this weekend seemed to drive itself while I didn't dare or felt like harming the calmness with any speed higher than 80Km/h.
We liked the pace in Évora and the fact that the centre of the city is inside ancient walls: it makes finding your ways a bit of an adventure, and being inside the walls have something of mysterious and tale-like. We finally bought the so-expected Alentejano wine, and after long walks, some sight-seing and visiting Roman Temple at dawn, we drove back to Lisbon with a feeling of calm, rest and peaceful-mindedness.

Johan ended the day pleasantly surprising me with great spontaneous generosity when we met our building's night guard (a man from Cape Verde who has switched nights for days for 10 years now) and offered him one of the bottles we had brought from Alentejo. A nice man of few words, Mr. Zé Manel.