The handsome city of Coimbra, with about 140,000 people in its municipality, stands on a hill overlooking the Mondego river, halfway between Lisbon and Porto. It is best known for its youthful atmosphere: students come here from all over Portugal, and now from all over the world, to attend its university, founded in 1290 and one of the oldest in Europe. In 2013 the University, together with the Alta and Rua da Sofia districts, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
A little history
The city dates back to Roman times, when it was called Aeminium. After the Visigoths came the Moors, under whom Coimbra prospered through trade, until in 1064 it was conquered by Ferdinand I of León and Castile. In 1131 Afonso Henriques, the first king of Portugal, made it the capital of the new kingdom, a role Coimbra kept until 1255, when the court moved to Lisbon.
The University was founded in 1290 by King Dinis I in Lisbon and for over two centuries moved several times between the two cities, until in 1537 King John III settled it permanently in Coimbra. Since then the city has been, alongside Salamanca, Bologna, Paris and Oxford, one of Europe's great centres of learning. Today it has more than 20,000 students, in faculties ranging from law to medicine, from science to architecture.
The University and the Joanina Library
The heart of a visit is the Paço das Escolas, the former royal palace given to the university, at the top of the hill. You enter through the Porta Férrea into the great courtyard dominated by the clock tower, the university's symbol, whose bell students call a cabra, the goat. Don't miss the Sala dos Capelos (Great Hall of Acts), where academic ceremonies are held, the Via Latina colonnade, the Private Examination Room and the Chapel of São Miguel, with a richly decorated Baroque organ.
The jewel is the Joanina Library, built in the first half of the eighteenth century under King John V: three Baroque rooms lined with gilded and lacquered wood holding some 60,000 old volumes. A curiosity: to protect the books from insects, a small colony of bats roams the library at night. Entry is limited, with timed tickets.
Student traditions
Coimbra's students still wear the traditional black cape and gown, the capa e batina. In May the city celebrates the Queima das Fitas, the "burning of the ribbons", a week of parades, concerts and serenades with which graduating students mark the end of their studies by burning their faculty's coloured ribbons. The city also has its own Coimbra fado, different from Lisbon's: it is traditionally sung by men, often students, and began as a serenade. You can hear it in a few venues in the centre and, on festive nights, on the steps of the Sé Velha.
Sé Velha, Sé Nova and the Machado de Castro Museum
Walking down from the university you reach the Sé Velha, the twelfth-century old cathedral and Portugal's most important Romanesque building: from outside it looks like a fortress, while inside the great gilded wooden altarpiece made by Flemish artists in the early sixteenth century stands out. Nearby is the Sé Nova, the new cathedral, a Jesuit church begun in 1598.
The Machado de Castro National Museum, in the former bishop's palace, holds one of the country's most important collections of sculpture and sacred art and is famous for the Roman cryptoporticus of Aeminium, a series of underground galleries that supported the forum of the ancient city.
The lower town: Santa Cruz and Praça do Comércio
In the Baixa, between Largo da Portagem and Praça do Comércio, are the church of São Tiago and the Monastery of Santa Cruz, founded in 1131, with its Manueline facade and the Cloister of Silence of 1517. The first two kings of Portugal, Afonso Henriques and Sancho I, are buried in the church. Next door, Café Santa Cruz, in a former chapel, is one of the city's most atmospheric cafés. Higher up, Praça da República is the heart of student nightlife.
Across the Mondego
On the left bank of the river are the Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Velha, a fourteenth-century Gothic convent flooded by the Mondego for centuries and now brought back to light, and the seventeenth-century Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Nova, where the remains of Queen Saint Isabel of Aragon rest. Families with children will enjoy Portugal dos Pequenitos, a park with Portuguese monuments in miniature. In town, the University's Botanical Garden, founded in 1772 at the behest of the Marquis of Pombal, is also worth a stroll.
Getting there
Coimbra lies on the Lisbon-Porto railway line: fast trains reach Lisbon in about two hours and Porto in about an hour. Coimbra-B station is on the main line, while Coimbra city station is a short walk from the Baixa. From here it is easy to reach Fátima, Leiria, Viseu and the Roman ruins of Conímbriga.