Ecorkhotel Évora - Suites & Spa
Fifty-six suites in a building clad entirely in cork, in an oak forest outside Évora.
Portugal produces roughly half the world's cork, most of it from the Alentejo, and the trees around Évora are stripped by hand every nine years in a practice that has continued for centuries. José Carlos Cruz took the material at face value and clad an entire hotel in it.
The main building is wrapped in natural brown cork panels, which insulate well enough that guests regularly report not needing the air conditioning in 35-degree heat. Around it, 56 suites are arranged as white cube-like volumes scattered among cork oaks, holm oaks, olive and juniper across about 12 acres, deliberately echoing the layout of a whitewashed Alentejo village rather than a hotel block.
The suites are the reason to book. The smallest runs to 70 square metres, with a bedroom, a separate living area, a proper bathroom and a private patio. Family versions add kitchenettes and sleep four. For the money, very little else in the region gives you that much room.
Facilities are more extensive than the price suggests: a rooftop pool with a bar and long views over the countryside, an indoor pool, a spa with sauna and Turkish bath, a gym, and the Cardo restaurant working with Alentejo produce. It was the first certified eco-hotel in Portugal.
Two practical notes. The hotel now trades as The Lince Ecorkhotel Évora following a rebrand, so older listings and newer ones use different names for the same place. And it sits outside the city, about 14 minutes' drive from the centre, with the Roman temple and the bone chapel around 16 to 17 minutes. Lisbon airport is roughly 70 minutes.
Families and anyone wanting large suites, a rooftop pool and a low price near Évora.
It is a 14-minute drive from central Évora, so you need a car. Now trading as The Lince Ecorkhotel, which can make older listings confusing.
Book through the aggregator. The web address we held for the hotel has lapsed and now forwards somewhere unrelated, so we no longer link to it — anything under that old domain is not the hotel.
The building
- Architect
- José Carlos Cruz
- Opened
- 2013
Amenities
- Pool
- Heated pool
- Spa
- Restaurant
- Bar
- Gym
- Garden
- Parking
- Air conditioning
- Family rooms
Check the dates
This hotel has no direct booking page we can point you to, so the aggregator link is the only one. Rates and availability are whatever they show on the day — the site does not cache them.
Nearby
All of Alentejo →Convento do Espinheiro, Historic Hotel & Spa
A 15th-century convent outside Évora with its original church still standing inside the hotel.
Pousada Convento de Évora
Thirty-six rooms in the monks' cells of a 15th-century convent, facing the Roman Temple of Diana.
Craveiral Farmhouse by Belong
Thirty-eight self-catering houses on a nine-hectare working farm near the Costa Vicentina.