A Casa do Governador

I stayed with friends at the lovely Casa do Governador which is around 3 kms from the centre of Evora & 500 metres from the Convent do Espinheiro. There are only 5 or 6 rooms but each is tastefully decorated and has a/c and fully fitted bathrooms. Downstairs there are a number of lounge rooms which are rustic and reflect local living and a shaded lounge area outside, this is set in 20 acres of land including a pool which we did not visit as we were to busy sightseeing. We would recommend.

Casa do Governador is a centennial house with around 28 hectares in a ecological reserve area just 3 Km from the centre of Evora. We stayed in the main house although there is a villa also available on the east side of the property. Our room was spacious, light and airy. The bathroom was excellent with a spacious shower. There are 2 lovely swimming pools set in a grassy area on one side of the vineyard with plenty of sun beds available. Breakfast is excellent with fresh fruit and fresh fruit juice served large communal table. Eggs are offered and cooked to order. We ate dinner on a first night which was beautifully cooked and served. Staff are friendly, professional and helpful.

Visiting from Miami. What a wonderful experience! Don Manolo & his team made our stay memorable. Great accommodations with strong reliable air conditioning, sound-proof windows with screens. Super clean and functional bathroom. Traditional rural hotel with all the modern amenities; including direct connections to charge phones at room. Very safe. Awesome breakfast and dinner. The young ladies offered great service and the whole inn is super peaceful. Met folks from Netherlands and California. Very close to Evora. We are coming back to have another Port by the vineyards…. Obrigado!

We stayed for a couple of nights with my husband and we like the place where it is located, beautiful settings. Also the rooms and decoration is very special and cozy. However, breakfast is very poor. The amenities cheap (and is not a cheap hotel) and the worst of all, the common outside areas were simply discussing, so dirty. You can tell they haven’t clean them for a while. Every chair had spider webs! Also the outdoor sofa where so dirty and some of them with rest of food with ants around it. And the worst of all: we arrived and there were cigarette butts on the floor and next day they were still there, and next day too. As said good place, but had a loooot to improve.

The cost is quite a lot for what you get but it does have a certain charm. The main building has some of the rooms then a separate building - some 500 meters away - has the others. Make sure if you are a group you don't book in different buildings! There was a slight feeling of Fawlty Towers when we first arrived with Manuel greeting us not with a hello, but straight into the history of the owner whose picture was on the wall. We got very limited information about the place and then after sorting out the confusion of where the rooms were - we were led off by car to the remote building to settle into slightly different rooms than the ones we orignally booked. The rooms are basic but country charming, and the bed was comfortable. There are limited amenities in the room - but that seemed to be the case with most places outside of the major hotels. Breakfast was around the big table in the main building and was a reasonable European style selection. The second day it was so crowded we had to eat outdoors - which was fine - but had to time getting food while it was still there as the platters, juices etc emptied quickly. We did dinner one night which was quite good and worthwhile given the distance to town.