A day is probably not enough for Coimbra, but it was all we had planned: a stop between Lisbon and Porto. Perhaps some day we’ll get back to see more and eat more in Portugal’s third-largest (but not very big) city and once its capital.
Santiago Church (above) is one of the city’s oldest, dating to the 1100s. The nearby ‘Old Cathedral’ (below) dates to the same era.
The ‘once’ was a long time ago. In 1131, when most of the Iberian peninsula was under Islamic rule, and under attack by Christian kings, the future kings of Portugal established their capital in Coimbra, but moved it to Lisbon in 1255, once they conquered that area.
Passing through the old city wall
Like many cities that lose their primary industry, Coimbra needed a new plan. In this case, it was the founding in 1290 of the University of Coimbra, the oldest academic institution in the Portuguese-speaking world. In a way, it has been the cultural capital of the country. Its historic core is also a 2013 UNESCO World Heritage site.
Of course, this is Portugal, so it’s no surprise that many of the streets in the old city are actually stairs…
At the top of the hill, near the university, we stopped at the ‘new’ cathedral, built in the 17th century. The most spectacular site there was this baptismal font, actually a giant shell brought from the Pacific by Portuguese explorers.
The university wasn’t in session when we visited, and building interiors were closed, but there were quite a few students at work selling souvenir books! The university’s buildings are quite varies—you’d expect that from an 800-year-old institution—but some of the contrasts were quite stark.
The 18th-century Faculty of Law building above, for instance, is just next to the fascist-era building of the Faculty of Letters.
Tilework on the Law School Roof
After the university, we decided to take the longer, slower, less steep way back down to the lower city, following the line of the city’s ancient aqueduct, which eventually led us to an entrance to the city’s botanical garden.
A pleasant lunch, and then back to the station for our train to Porto.
