Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
BEIRA LITORAL
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Coimbra
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The medieval capital of Portugal for over a hundred years, and site of the country's greatest
university for the past five centuries, Coimbra wears its weighty importance in Portuguese
history with dignity. Its atmospheric, beautiful historic core cascades down a hillside in a
lovely setting on the east bank of the Rio Mondego: it's a multicoloured collage of build-
ings spanning nearly a millennium.
If you visit during the academic year, you'll be sure to feel the university's influence.
Students throng bars and cafes; posters advertise talks on everything from genetics to geno-
cide; and graffiti scrawled outside
repúblicas
(communal student dwellings) address the
political issues of the day. If you can, come during the Queima das Fitas in early May, a
raucous weeklong celebration featuring live music every night. Or stroll the streets on a
summer evening, when the city's old stone walls reverberate with the haunting metallic
notes of the
guitarra
(Portuguese guitar) and the full, deep voices of fado singers.
Take a few steps outside the historic centre and you'll also see the city's modern side - a
modern riverfront park with terrace bars and restaurants, a spiffy pedestrian bridge across
the Mondego, and vast shopping complexes offering everything you'd expect in a major
European city.
The city also makes a fine base for day visits to the remarkable Roman ruins at Coním-
briga, the medieval hilltop fortress of Montemor-o-Velho or the outlandishly ornate Palace
Hotel do Buçaco.
History
The Romans founded a city at Conímbriga, though it was abruptly abandoned in favour of
Coimbra's more easily defended heights. The city grew and prospered under the Moors,
who were evicted definitively by Christians in 1064. The city served as Portugal's capital
from 1139 to 1255, when Afonso III decided he preferred Lisbon.
The Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal's first university (and among the first in
Europe), was actually founded in Lisbon by Dom Dinis in 1290 but settled here in 1537. It
