[Dec. 2021] During our stay in Lisbon, Portugal, we made an excursion to Evora in the Alentejo region.
A few years ago, we travelled only to the Alentejo region and went to Evora, too, but we missed the bone chapel at that time.
I first became interested in the bone chapels in 2017 when we first saw it in Faro, Portugal.
After that, we saw several walls made of bones in Italy, France and the Czech Republic.
I learned a long time ago that Evora also had a famous bone chapel, and I wanted to see it if I had the chance.
Evora from Lisbon is about an hour and a half by train.
It is a distance that you can go on a day trip.
I found out that the train leaves from Oriente station, which is quite far from the centre of Lisbon.
We took a taxi to get there, but when we actually got on the train, it stopped at a station closer to the city centre.
Oriente station is unique, and when it was completed, it must have been very modern and cool, but now it looks old and faded.
According to online information, it has opened in 1998.
The platform ceilings still looked great, but the premises are made of exposed concrete finish, and especially on rainy days like this one, it was dim and gloomy.
The return journey cost € 45 for two people with the seat reservations.
The atmosphere of this train was nostalgic.
We often see dramas set in the 1950s and 1960s, and the green curtains in the train were something that could appear in those dramas.
When we were sitting in the designated seats, a middle aged man with an old mother came up to us and said, “That’s our seat.”
By all means, we were not wrong, but we moved to vacant seats with the intention of giving up our seats to the elderly.
The train started to move, and after a while, the conductor came to check the ticket after crossing the red bridge (April 25th bridge) in the Belem district of Lisbon.
And he pointed out to the mother and the son, “This is not your train.”
They were on the wrong train altogether.
The man apologized to us in fluent English, and he was very embarrassed, saying, “I have never made such a mistake.”
After this incident, the time passed very quietly.
Perhaps because it was raining, there wasn’t much to see from the train window, and it was a boring hour and a half.
