This ancient Portuguese city was once the residence of kings

“We bones that lay here wait for your bones”. The inscription sits over the entrance to the Capela Dos Ossos, a chapel inside a 15th century church within the walled historic centre of Evora in southern Portugal. They watch us, or seem to, these 5000 skeletons arranged into patterns along the building’s columns and walls, legacy of a period when graveyards were overflowing, reminders that – since we’re all goners anyway – we had better make the most of our brief stint on Earth.

A sense of time passing, of history unfurling, pervades Evora, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1986 and the capital of the Alentejo region, a rural interior of rolling plains and fortified towns, of vineyards, cork and oak trees and storks nesting atop telegraph poles.

Out here in the bird-sung quiet, a bumpy 15-kilometre drive from Evora (itself an hour out of Lisbon), lies the Almendres Cromlech, the largest megalithic monument on the Iberian Peninsula. Ninety-five standing stones, some engraved to represent people whose faces have suns for eyes, crescent moons for mouths and shepherds’ crooks – apparently early symbols of power – for noses.

Like the Neolithics, the Romans also gazed up at the stars over Evora, probably from the hilltop on which they built what is now called the Temple of Diana – 14 Corinthian columns capped with white Estremoz marble. Variously a mosque during Moorish rule (eighth to 12th century), a medieval market, a walled-up fortress and a slaughterhouse, the temple was uncovered in its near pristine state in the late 19th century. It remains an iconic landmark, and a student hang-out (Evora has a large university), to rival the soaring conical spires of the adjacent Roman-Gothic cathedral, Portugal’s largest, which has a museum packed with church-gotten treasures and views over the city and ancient-aqueduct-sporting countryside.

Daily life amid Evora’s whitewashed houses, storied architecture and oh-so-strollable cobbled streets feels calm, unhurried. In Praca de Giraldo, the central square, coffee drinkers sun themselves at tables, a busker with an electric guitar plays long, lazy chords and a sign over the pastry cabinet in Cafe Arcada instructs “Do not touch the glass, the cakes are sleeping”. An ornate marble fountain topped with a metal-hewn royal crown – Evora was the residence of 15th century Portuguese kings – sits empty before the Renaissance facade of the Church of Santo Antao (free entry, or 50 cents if taking photos). Through Moorish-styles arches are wine bars selling mature, full-bodied reds.

A street is given over to Alentejo handicrafts, most fashioned from cork: placemats, handbags. On a mannequin in a window, a crocheted cork bikini. The region’s cork trees, cousins of the Holm oak, also prevalent, are harvested/peeled every nine years to allow for regeneration. Pork, a traditional regional dish whether fried, stewed, grilled or served porco a Alentejana, braised with clams, tends to free-range for a few years while feasting on acorns. “Look how shiny and healthy this ham is,” says our waiter at Restaurant d’IBerica, standing over a small table and expertly carving up an upside-down haunch with a vertical trotter.