The Iberian peninsula's largest and most impressive stone circle lies just to the west of Évora, south of the small village of Guadalupe, 13km from the city. To get there directly from Évora, take the N114 towards Montemor/Lisbon and follow the signs from Guadalupe. If you're approaching from the south, from Escoural and Valverde, you need to turn left in Guadalupe, at the Café Barreiros.

You are directed out along a dirt road (largely flat and in good condition, fine for cars), reaching the Menir dos Almendres after 2km. This is a single, three-metre-high standing stone set in a quiet olive plantation. Despite its obvious Neolithic origins, the local legend has it that it is the tomb of an enchanted Moorish princess, who appears once a year on the eve of São João and can be seen combing her hair.

This is simply the taster, since another 2.5km along the dirt road there's a parking area beside the extraordinary Cromeleque dos Almendres, where no less than 92 stones are aligned in concentric enclosures for seventy metres down a dusty hillside. Placed here in several phases, between six and seven thousand years ago, they are thought to have been erected as some kind of astronomical observatory and site of fertility rituals – though no one really knows. However, what's immediately clear, even today, is the power of the site, the stones resembling frozen figures, standing impassively, gazing down across the surrounding cork plantation to Évora gleaming in the distance.