Coimbra
José Afonso, Saudades de Coimbra (Fado)
Last week end we visited Coimbra - the city with the oldest university of Portugal, if not of the Iberic Peninsula. We had a great guide - Gaurav, the Indian trainee, who has been in Lisbon some time ago and which leaves in 2 weeks, after a year and a half of traineeship here in Portugal. We also wanted to see him one last time, because he is our friend, even if we didn´t spend so much time together.
Gaurav and us
Coimbra is a small town, that you can cross by foot in few dozens of minutes, so we walked a lot, which has been pretty tiring. And also it was a very hot day with 21-22 degrees. The river that crosses the town is Mondego and it has 3 bridges, from which one is just for people.
The bridge for people
Also it´s an extremly calm little town - you can have the impression sometimes that the time stops. And in the summer time, when the students leave, it´s almost a "ghost" city.
Visiting the old part of the city is a must. The first point was a place called "Penedo da Saudade", a historical public garden. The garden has partial views of Coimbra skyline and the city stadium. According to the legend, nothing remained the same after the death of Inês de Castro . It used to be a relaxing and isolated place, where Dom Pedro used to come to grieve the loss of his beloved Inês. It is said that this mourning and sadness gave this place its name – Penedo da Saudadewas born, challenging eternity with words they etched on the stone. These words represent the feelings of many generations of Coimbra students and lovers which can be seen today in the rocks of the garden (Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penedo_da_Saudade). (Rock of Nostalgia). Many centuries later, it seemed to be the right place for the romantic encounters of students, and it was at this time that Coimbra Fado
Panorama over Coimbra - from Penedo da Saudade
Poems etched on the stone in Penedo da Saudade
Then we walked till the downtown, and searched for a place to eat...but here and in many other cities of Portugal (maybe in Lisbon there are few exceptions) lunch in not served later than 3 PM...so we just ate some sandwiches on a terrace. Afterwards, we continued visiting, on foot :D. I know that at the end of the day I could barely feel my feet.
Other things we saw:
The statue of Pope John Paul II
One of the main streets of Coimbra
A traditional neighbourghood
The old university of Coimbra
The yard
A course-room (decorated with blue"azulejos" on the walls)
A place where you can breath the history
A student "republica", place where more students are living, usually belonging to the same "fraternity"
And who is not with that fraternity, will be hangged, that´s the meaning of the student with black mantle (part of the students´uniform - even today; the singers of Coimbra Fado can be distinguished from the ones from Lisbon also after the black mantle they wear) hangged outside the building of the "republica"
The entrance in a "republica"
A narrow street of Coimbra´s "Bairro Alto", an area with many "republicas"
Santa Cruz monastery
The interior cloister
A famous "gate" of the town
The main comercial avenue
The downtown square
In the evening we had dinner at Gaurav´s place, with other 2 people: his Brazilian flatmate and the Brazilian´s girlfriend, a 19 years old Austrian girl.
I was already very tired, but even so we wanted to go to see Coimbra Fado. Gaurav took us in the best fado place of Coimbra, "Capela", arranged on a former chapel. We could notice the Portuguese guitar of Coimbra, and the different style of Fado. The one sung in Coimbra is the Fado of students, having as theme the student life.
Fado in Capela
The one that was singing at the Portuguese guitar was also one of the owners of Capela, a very talented guy...I didn´t see anyone until then that would move so fast the fingers on the strings. We said that we´ll come back there sometime.
Us and Ricardo (the owner of the fado place)
Afterwards we went - walking - at home. In the way we saw something spedific to Coimbra: 2 dizzy students, not to say drunk :-), that were running after a car yelling "give me a ride..." (“boleia” in Portuguese); they were so funny. I asked them if they want to take a picture with us; at the beginning they asked for a light, cause they forgot their lighters; in all this time having an attitude of drunk and amuzing people. My God, how good we laughed with them; they caleed us to the party they were going to, but we were tired and we wanted to go at home, but they were insisting :-)...”Come on, come on, just a little…”. They were so nice and funny.
The second day we woke up pretty late, around 11. We had a quick breakfast, and we went on visiting again. We were on the bank of the river, we stopped at a terrace...
Then we went to see another monastery, that was on a hill, and in the evening we left to Lisbon, with a very nice impression about this calm little town...
posted by Diana @ 13:52
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