DAY 64: Coimbra, home to one of the world's oldest Universities.

August 16 2024, Coimbra, Portugal

Coimbra is home of the oldest university in Portugal and one of the oldest in the world. Coimbra University was founded in 1290, its current ionic campus sits on top of the highest hill in the city. The site is now exclusively the home of the Law faculty and many other faculty buildings dotted around the area. Coimbra is very much a university town with 28,000 of it's 120,000 residents being students.

The location has a very interesting history it was originally a fortress for governance when the city was under Moor Islamic rule in the 10th century, when the Moors were driven out it then became a Royal Palace and home to Portugal's first 5 kings before being transitioned to Coimbra University in 1544.

Our first activity for the morning was to walk up to the University for a guided tour of the main campus. I had pulled my calf muscle a couple of days ago, so I took a taxi and met everyone at the Uni entrance. Our guide Renan was from Brazil, but he had studied and got his degree at Coimbra, so he knew the place inside out. He was very funny, full of knowledge and had a great manner- another in a long list of great guides.

After having given us an overview of the university and its history Renan took us across the courtyard to visit our first rooms in the large complex - the Jail. Yes, that's right the university has a jail in its basement. Students (and occasionally staff) were locked up for anything from 2 days to six months for breaking the rules. The harshest penalties were for those who spread ideas against the monarchy-the university wasn't big on freedom of thought and speech back in the day. If someone was incarcerated, they were still able to attend lectures but had to return to the prison as soon as they were complete.

The prison is directly under the main library and that was our next stop. The Biblioteca Joana (King Johns) Library is an amazing space full on old and historic books. Interesting fun fact, there are bats living in the library. They eat the little critters that would cause damage to the books so it's a win-win for everyone, except the poor bugger who has to clean up the bat droppings each morning! There is much golden augmentation to complement the deep brown wooden interior, including ornate symbols for each of the faculty's showing what subject the books in any one section relate to. With very high ceilings and stacked with books from top to bottom it definitely had a classic library feel. There is also another more 'every day' library elsewhere on campus that was typically used by the students.

We saw the hall where people gathered for official functions and where PHD students would present and argue their thesis. Back in the day your success was very much dependent on how those marking your work judged you as a person as much as the quality of your work. There was a kind of character test at the end where you presented yourself to a group of senior academics and for any reason (not related to your academic performance) with a stoke of the pen they could fail you. This was a way of controlling the 'type' of person who entered academia at the university and ultimately moved through to senior decision-making positions.

To this day the university is extremely conservative. Renan talked about when he was in Brazil the students would have beers with the professors (on occasion). When he arrived at Coimbra it was quite a culture shock, lecturers were very distant, Lectures were impersonal and most correspondence was required to be via email.

Our last stop was the University chapel. The chapel was built in the late gothic style and the wall coverings are large blue patterned wall tiles - many of which had been there is the 1600s - it was easy to spot the replacement ones! A dominant feature in the chapel is the ornate baroque organ. Complete with pipes shaped as trumpets. Significantly the chapel was the place of worship for the first 5 Portuguese Kings while they were in residence.

After our visit was complete, we had free time and walked quietly down the hill to the Old Town, stopping on the way to do a little shopping. Once there we found a nice bar/restaurant and I had a quiet beer and did some people watching while Jeanette wandered around the shops. One thing I have come to dislike immensely on this trip is the Tuk Tuk's that offer people rides around the city - they are everywhere and seem very out of place in Europe. My thoughts of them weren't helped when one parked right in front of where I was sitting interrupting my, what until then, had been a lovely view.

On our way back to the Hotel we found a wallet it was too late to get it to a police station as we needed to move on, so we left it with the Hotel to sort. Everyone was back on time, and we taxied to the train station. Yes, that's right no fancy coach, we were training it from Coimbra to Porto. We're really enjoying the more informal travel style with G-Adventures. The trip was just over an hour, and I sat next to Mika from Japan. We chatted away on the journey and it was great to get to know her better. She was very impressed Terence (our son) loved Japan and had been there quite a few times.

When we got to Porto, we checked in to our hotel The Mercure, went for an orientation walk and then we all decided after our Cod fish experience yesterday it was a good time to have a break from local cuisine and have a Pizza night. The place we went to Farinha Santa Catarina was owned by a friend of Megane's and despite my initial concerns - no meat lovers pizza on the menu - it was fantastic and the food delicious. I went for a peperoni pizza in the end and it turned out to be one of the best (if not the best) pizza's I've ever had!

Very excited about exploring Porto tomorrow.

NOTE: Blogs for Day 1 to Day 62 of our awesome European adventure can be found at https://www.travelblog.org/bloggers/grantd