On the Way to Porto – April 18

Leaving Lisbon to get to Porto to pick up our riverboat we had a stop in the town of Coimbra. Coimbra was the capital of Portugal until 1260. It was one of the favorite places for the Kings and Queens to spend time between their homes in Lisbon and Sintra.

We learned a lot about King Alfonso, who wanted to marry his son, Pedro, to a princess from Galicia (Spain) to tie the countries together for political purposes. When Pedro was introduced to Constansia, he noticed her lady in waiting, Inez, and it was love at first sight. Pedro married Constansia, but also had a home with Inez. He had children with both. Eventually King Alfonso, moved Inez to Coimbra and subsequently arranged for her to be killed. Constansia died 6 years into the marriage during childbirth. Although Inez was dead, Pedro had her coronated as Queen. Weird story.

Coimbra was originally a Roman settlement. The town is now known for its university. We toured the university grounds but our main attraction was the library. King Joao established it. Until 1910 it was the only University in Portugal. The city has a population of about 150,000 with 22,000 being students. Currently the university has 50 majors. For Portuguese students the tuition is 1250€ a year. For students from other places it is 5 to 7000 €. We were told there is a staircase of 125 steps that for orientation the freshmen have to climb several times, but when done they are rewarded with beer. Apparently many things at this university are rewarded with beer. They even have a huge party the week before exams to celebrate the end of the year. Our guide said they do it this way since not everyone can celebrate after exams 😉.

Coimbra University is one of the oldest in Europe and one of only five in the world listed as a World Heritage Site . It was founded in 1290, and occupies its current building since 1544. It’s the former royal palace, but very little remains of the royal residence, as it was remodelled and extended over the centuries, and especially in the 1700s.

The library, which is recognized as one of the world’s finest, dates from that period, and was a gift of King João V, who, thanks to the gold from the colony of Brazil, was one of Europe’s richest monarchs. The gold-covered library is filled with 40,000 books, and is accessed through a room that was the Academic Prison from 1773 to 1834. In order to preserve the books from insects, the library has two small colonies of bats, which come out at night. All the books are in Latin. There is a current project to digitize 30,000 of the books. The oldest book is an 11th century bible.

In order to enter we had to wait. We were only allowed in 2 different areas for 10 minutes each. This is to control the temperature and humidity of the rooms. We entered through the university jail and were able to see a floor for studying and we could take photos. The Noble floor with the collection of these rare books covered in intricate carvings and gold was unbelievable. No photos but I got one from the internet so you could see it too.

We also went into St. Michael’s Chapel. It had a very beautiful pipe organ.

After leaving the University we went into town where we had a Fado performance. Fado is a type of singing, with a special guitar.

After this we finally reached our ship, however it was not in Porto. Apparently the dock that Tauck uses in Porto is near the mouth of the river and there is bad weather there. We are about 30 miles from Porto in a safe spot to dock.