The University of Coimbra's annual bacchanal (oops, I mean graduation day) delayed our hotel check-in until 7 p.m. This attractive couple--notice the red paint smears on his face which were common if unexplained--asked me to take their photo as we descended to the riverfront for dinner. Janet is just behind his thumb.
As golden as this light is, let me assure you golden also described the alcohol that many students were consuming in voluminous quantities as was the urine that trickled down the cobblestone streets when male students publicly relieved themselves against walls. The stench and noise contrasted sharply with views that looked as if they had been painted by J.M.W.Turner.
Students at Coimbra have been partying for nearly 500 years, about a century longer than at Harvard, the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. But the university itself was established in 1290 in Lisbon, making it one of the longest continuously educating in the world.
Needless to say, we chose not to eat outdoors in front of Il Tartufo, an excellent Italian restaurant where a group of relatively sober students redeemed themselves by engaging the old folks in conversation. My dessert choice chimed the evening's theme color.
A street lamp cast a ghostly shadow as we were forced to climb back up the streets to our hotel. Uber drivers still hadn't been permitted riverfront access at 10 p.m. As my father would have said, "Damn kids!" Although they do make terrific portrait subjects.
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