If you're planning a trip to Portugal, make sure you don't mind using the stairs. They're as ubiquitous as tourists.
Kudos to Coimbra's sanitation department. By the time we returned to the historic center, the streets had been swept clean or hosed, and the air no longer smelled of beer and piss. Potato deliveries were right on schedule.
Bad news awaited at the University of Coimbra. With the online ticketing system down, we couldn't purchase tickets to see the baroque library, the city's number-one attraction.
But there's always a cathedral to check out. We started with the "new" cathedral. New, of course, is a relative term. Ground for this one was broken in 1541.
From there we headed to the wonderful Museu Nacional de Machado de Castro, which gets its own entry. Afterward, we descended once again to the Mondego River. I'm assuming this is some kind of political slogan. The words were repeated along the length of a wall.
Of course the "old" cathedral (by about 350 years), built in the Romanesque style, beckoned.
Portugal's second king was crowned here long before all the froufrou accumulated.
The tiles date back to the 16th century.
They really set off the Baroque statues!
Graffiti down by the river welcomed us back to the 21st Century.
Rents are a lot cheaper in Coimbra than either Lisbon or Porto with one-bedroom apartments available for a little more than $400 per month.
When I took this photo, I didn't realize the bridge had been named for the king and posthumous queen who lost her head.
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