Museu do Relógio, Évora branch

The Museu do Relógio has its main museum in Serpa and, since December 2011, a branch in Évora, the Alentejo’s UNESCO World Heritage city. The Évora branch is in the Palácio Barrocal on Rua de Serpa Pinto, a couple of minutes’ walk from Praça do Giraldo, the city’s main square. The building belongs to the INATEL foundation, the museum’s partner here.

The museum describes the Évora branch as a “calling card” for the main museum. It is smaller, with more than 600 mechanical clocks and watches from the 18th century to today, displayed across two rooms. For families already in central Évora, that small size is a strength: it fits into an hour between bigger sights without anyone flagging.

Clocks are everywhere: in glass display cabinets, hung on the walls and built into grand pieces of furniture, with pendulums swinging behind glass doors. VisitEvora, an Évora travel guide, describes walls of cuckoo clocks of the kind that once called out the hours and half-hours in grandparents’ houses, and cases of watch bracelets. Every piece is mechanical, so the rooms are full of ticking at different speeds and volumes, which younger children often find funny.

The museum also designs its own mechanical watches with German and Russian manufacturers, in limited editions that each honour a Portuguese city or region, and some are on sale in the shop.

The part of the Évora branch that sets it apart from Serpa is the restoration room. The museum’s master watchmakers repair clocks and watches of every kind for collectors, and in Évora the room shows off their tools, laid out so visitors can see how fiddly the work is. Children who have only seen a screwdriver in a toolbox are usually surprised by how small and specialised the tools are.

This room is the best way into a conversation about how a mechanical watch works. The museum’s own watchmaking dictionary explains it clearly. A wound spring stores energy. Gear wheels pass that energy along. A small lever called the anchor (âncora) gives the balance wheel a little push each time it swings, and the balance, which the museum calls the heart of the movement, swings back and forth at a steady rate, so its swings set the watch’s pace. Each swing is made of two beats, and those two beats are the “tick-tock” you hear. An automatic watch winds its own spring as you move your wrist.

Many of the clocks on display arrived broken and were donated to the museum; the Serpa museum says nearly 400 have been repaired by its watchmakers and put on show.

Children under six mostly enjoy the ticking and the cuckoos, and do best on a short visit. From about seven, the restoration room and the idea of a spring and wheels inside a watch start to make sense. Older children and teenagers who like engineering can follow how precision improved over the centuries, from clocks with one hand to watches accurate to the second.

The Évora branch opens Tuesday to Friday from 14:00 to 17:30 and on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays from 10:00 to 12:30 and 14:00 to 17:30, with the last visit at 17:00. It is closed on Mondays. It also closes for about a week in January and in July, usually at different times from Serpa, so one of the two is always open; the dates are posted on the museum’s website.

Ticket prices were not published on the museum’s website when checked in September 2026. Call 266 751 434 before you go if the cost matters.

On weekdays it only opens in the afternoon, so plan Évora’s outdoor sights for the morning. It is a look-don’t-touch museum, suited to calm children rather than those who need to run. Access details for buggies and wheelchairs are not given online, so ask when you call.

The Capela dos Ossos, the chapel lined with human bones, is a short walk away and fascinates many older children. The Água de Prata aqueduct runs right into the old town, with houses built into its arches. Outside the city, the Almendres Cromlech is a field of standing stones older than Stonehenge. For a snack, see Pão de Rala. The main Museu do Relógio in Serpa has the bigger collection, a garden and a café.

How is the Évora clock museum different from the one in Serpa?

Évora is a smaller branch with over 600 clocks in two rooms and a restoration room on show. Serpa is the main museum, with ten rooms, a garden, a café-bar and a library.

How long does a visit take?

About 45 minutes to an hour.

Is it open in the morning?

Only at weekends and on public holidays. On weekdays it opens from 14:00.

Is it good for young children?

It suits calm children who enjoy looking. Toddlers usually like the ticking and the cuckoo clocks for a short time.