Portugal Day 10
To sample a bit more of Portugal we’d planned a three night stay in Coimbra, an ancient University town two hours north by train. We reserved a room at the Guest House of the Old Monastery Santa Clara expecting a place with historical and architectural significance. It had neither but a good location just across the Montego river from the old town at the base of the mountain situating the new Santa Clara Monastery, built in the 1600’s to avoid the river’s regular flooding.
Built on the site of the Roman settlement of Aeminium Coimbra was the capital of Portugal from 1131 to 1255. The home of the first Portuguese University which moved there from Lisbon in 1308 it still remains a center of learning and research with the hallowed and youthful atmosphere of Oxford, Cambridge or Yale.
The temperature dropped and the wind blew as we walked across the bridge
The central promenade was buzzing with buskers, tourists, and black-robed undergraduates asking for donations to their year end graduation parties, a traditional activity since the Middle Ages.
Our destination was the Café Santa Cruz, located in the Central Square as a side chapel of the Cathedral of Santa Cruz, there to attend a Fado performance, offered free of charge daily at 6:00 and 10:00 p.m.
It’s an amazing place: gothic architecture, the antique furniture and traditional coffee house atmosphere which has been a cultural center since the 1920’s.
Along with the rest of the audience we were thrilled by the performances by the older singer and two young instrumentalist while drinking local white wine.
We took an alternate route back to the bridge, passing by an ancient Romanesque church,
long enclosed plazas,
and a building in the same style as our 1908 Lisboa Hotel.
At the Restaurante Dona Taska across the street from the guest house, we ate traditional chanfana, goat meat stewed in wine, for the first and last time.