Coimbra

 Jake awoke feeling a little better, but I drove us all to Coimbra, about a 2 ½ hour drive.  Traffic wasn’t bad although the one rest area we stopped at was very busy.  Jake navigated us to Sapientia Hotel in the Ciudad Alta near the University.  Fortunately we got a parking spot right outside the hotel!  We had a nice lunch at the hotel restaurant in the courtyard. Linda got a pretty dish of cauliflower with baba ganoush and a pumpkin puree and the rest of us got salads with either tuna or shrimp. The hotel has very modern rooms and ours was on a corner with great views over the city.

Night view from the Sapientia hotel rooftop

Sunset view from our room

Coimbra is a medieval era town built on a hill along a river.  The cobbled streets are narrow and curved with stairways in between roads.  Not an easy city to learn your way around initially, but the downtown is really not that big, so by day 2 I had a better sense of where I was.  With the help of my phone I navigated to a couple shopping streets and back and made sure that the botanical garden would be open tomorrow.  There was a small antiques market taking place on one street with lots of dishes, linens, costume jewelry, and miscellaneous other things.  A surprising number of stores seemed to be closed, even though it was Saturday afternoon.

Coimbra city street

Under an arch in Coimbra

Jake took a nap and I picked him up around 4pm.  We wanted to visit the municipal market which online says it is open until 2am, but nearly all the stalls were closed when we got there and just a few things were open on the second level.  We also failed to find the ticket office for the University.  I think it was moved because of some construction.  We did find a pastry/ice cream shop and a drug store to buy decongestant. There are a lot of pastry stores in town.   We saw one small student protest about costs of housing and education.

By evening, Linda wasn’t feeling well and Jake didn’t want to face walking the hills of Coimbra again, so we had dinner at the hotel restaurant, indoors this time. By the time we went back to our room, a huge concert had started across the river.  It was a reunion of 3 bands that had started during some Portuguese teen show maybe a decade ago.  The crowd and music were loud enough that we almost felt we were at the concert.  It didn’t end until after midnight.   During the day over the weekend, there was a near constant high pitched whine of model race cars on a track across the river.

In the morning Jake, Jim, and I found the ticket office for the University building tours.  The University started in the 1100s when Coimbra was the capital of Portugal, although wasn’t there permanently until the 1500s. We got a ticket that allowed us in to all of the sites, but the library, with timed entry, wasn’t available until 4pm.  We visited the old chemistry building.  It had an exhibit about the Jesuit’s missions to other countries and one on light and matter.  The Jesuits operated the University from the mid-1500s until they were expelled from Portugal in the 1700s.  I think that the University is now operated by Portugal.

The University chapel

Thesis defense room

Cabinet of curiosities

Cabinets of curiosities

Plaza of the University's oldest buildings, formal royal palace

Gate to the courtyard

Old chemistry building

 

We then saw the Cabinet of Curiosities room that features cabinets put together by current professors and students from objects in the museum’s collection.  Unfortunately there wasn’t any explanation about why a particular selection of objects had been chosen for display.  Interestingly, the stone staircase had lots of student carvings in it (old graffiti).  Jim and I went into the baroque chapel, and finally we all went into the Royal Palace which now has rooms where doctoral students defend their theses and for convocations.

From there, the Botanical Garden! One side borders an old aqueduct, and the rest spills down a steep hillside to the river.  There is a large glasshouse and a “cold house” that can only be entered by special arrangement.  The cold house was interesting -  a wood slatted structure with a stone wall that has water dripping down it keeps the climate suitable for shade and moisture loving plants that need cooler temperatures.

The beds for plant families seemed not be tended and were not accessible.  You can walk through a symmetrical formal garden and a garden that has beds for growing edible plants.  There are some huge old trees and there was an exhibit about wood structure in different types of trees. There is also an area called the mata, sort of a woods/wild area.  Only part of that was open too.  There is a large, dark stand of bamboo, a small orchard area, and some overgrown areas.  The garden was very peaceful and shady.

Allee of lindens

Trough with native plants

Bamboo path

Glasshouse

Formal garden

Jake and I had lunch near the old cathedral at Restaurants Maria Portuguesa.  They have a little outdoor seating area with good people-watching.  The food was quite good.  We shared carrot soup and a roasted pork sandwich that came with sort of a pickled onion jam.  They also had chocolate mousse made with eggs instead of cream so we got that for dessert.  Very rich and tasty!

After that we just hung out at the hotel’s courtyard and read for awhile.  We said goodbye to Jim and Linda and drove to our hotel near the Porto Airport, OPO Porto Airport.  Quite a large and comfortable room!  The rental car return was a 600m away and we could walk back.  Tomorrow morning we take the 4am shuttle for our 6am flight.

Roadside near Aveiro where the fires had been when we arrived