Evora

Evora concentrates two thousand years inside one wall circuit on the Alentejo plain - a UNESCO World Heritage city where the Roman temple's granite columns, raised in the first century and long miscalled the Temple of Diana, stand a lane away from a Gothic cathedral and the arcaded Giraldo square. The famous shudder is the Capela dos Ossos, the 16th-century Chapel of Bones, its walls and pillars faced entirely with monks' skulls and femurs beneath the greeting 'We bones that are here, for yours we wait' - a memento mori that outdraws everything else in town. Around these set pieces spreads the true pleasure: whitewashed lanes trimmed in ochre, a university founded in 1559 and revived in 1973 after two centuries of silence, and the wine and slow food of Portugal's emptiest, most golden province.

What you actually see

• The Roman temple - first-century columns at the city's crown.
• The Chapel of Bones - walls faced with skulls and their greeting.
• Giraldo square - arcades and fountains at the whitewashed heart.
• The cathedral rooftop - granite towers and views over the plain.

When to go

Spring and autumn are the Alentejo's gift - wildflowers or grape harvest with walkable temperatures. High summer regularly passes forty degrees; do as locals do and surrender the afternoon.

Honest expectations

Summer heat is not a detail - it dictates the whole day's shape. Day trips from Lisbon shortchange the city; an evening here, after the coaches leave, is when Evora breathes. The bone chapel is genuinely macabre and not for every visitor.

Nearby

The Almendres Cromlech megaliths, Monsaraz village and the Alentejo wine estates.