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Published: August 20th 2008
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Look up a little and the brilliant sky blues & sun-whitened walls meet in the far-off haze of the hills. Surrounding you.
Shadows throw across the old, old buildings and older land.
Slowing your heart & mind as you happily wander the alleys and squares.
Welcome to Coimbra.
We got here Travelling by train. It's where old & new Portugal meet. The coaches are largely modern & roomy but the stations were populated by beggars out of the 19th century, complete with humps. The welfare system according to the online Encyclopaedia Britannica is comprehensive... 'The Portuguese welfare system is composed of several types of institutions that insure workers against sickness, disability, and old age and provide for the payment of pensions and family allowances. Compulsory insurance is provided by employers in most sectors of business and industry; employees also pay into the fund. Trade-union provident funds and welfare funds for other employees provide assistance for most categories of workers, and there are voluntary mutual assistance associations and provident institutions for the military forces and civil servants. Many large companies maintain their own welfare and sickness benefit programs and pensions for their employees.'...for workers that is. For some begging
Yeah! Right on!
Viva whatever......Can someone please translate this? seems to be a better option.
The Casa Pombal hostel is high up overlooking Coimbra. It's owned & run by Anja, an enthusiastic Dutch woman who'd made a life for herself in this student town on the hill. Behind a plain wooden door, one of many crammed onto the edge of the narrow street, lay the quiet calm of our room decorated in Barbie/Catholic crossover chic. A vista of terracotta roofs surrounded the little, vine shrouded courtyard where Anja gave us a precision sightseeing briefing.
We followed Anja's instructions precisely and had a great time. First on the list was Coimbra University on the hill. We wound our way upwards and arrived atop Coimbra. We were greeted with the plaza bathed in bright, white light. On the Palazio buildings surround on 3 sides with the 4th giving a beautiful view of the city, bridges & river. Musuem fatigue had set in and it took a bit of prodding from Michelle for me to go along with buying tickets to look at some library....
It's the grandest display of books we've ever seen.* The tall wooden doors creak open. You step out of the heat and into a cool,
dark room bathed in a golden tinge. Looking up and around; The spines of the books and the gilded bookcases shimmer back at you. They have gone to great lengths to preserve the books and fittings. At night flying janitor bats gobble-up any loose insects that haven't died from the indigestable wood (oak) used to preserve the bookcases.
Coimbra's students were away on summer break but their fervent efforts at graffiti were there to see.
Not understanding Portuguese leaves you free to appreciate the graffiti as art. Unlike the dull, apolitical nature of NZ universities, political passions seem to get easily excited here. In 1974 Portugal had a left-wing military coup known as the 'Carnation Revolution' which ironically started the movement towards democracy. Maybe the business of politics is still so new that the apathy of stability hasn't set in quite yet. Although the per-capita income is low, the quality of life index on the other hand puts Portugal in the worlds top twenty places to live. So no more revolution I think.
Coimbra is a compact little city to get around, if not very hilly. However, there is a vernacular railroad that got us up and down
quickly for a price. In between sites there are wide, winding steps that inevitably narrow as you reach the top bisected by often narrower streets that pedestrians & cars share. Rodney Hide seems to be the only person in Auckland who owns a SmartCar. Here there are thousands of people who wouldn't vote for Rodney but drive SmartCars. Or you can ride a scooter or a dirtbike which are really popular too. You can see why when the townfolk strive to be modern without ruining their beautiful city with cars. We saw one or two SUV's in town but owning an SUV requires a certain arrogance.
After spending up a storm in the States & UK we needed to economise. There's no place better than Portugal to do this. Although laundry is a suprising issue. Unlike old Oporto they do have a laundromat in Coimbra which by now we desperately needed. It did cost 10 euros per load so plan to be filthier, longer to stay flush.The markets (Mercado) are a fixture in every town and offer another opportunity to butcher the portuguese language asking for ham and cheese. Being a smallish country of 11 million, the locals do
Packman
What a badass make an effort to try and understand. By this time, out of the corner of my eye; I had caught Michelle smirking in stereo with the bemused shopkeepers as I jumbled languages & smashed the grammar around to communicate.
No matter, we now had all the Jamon & Quesja rolls we could scoff for 5 euros plus fruit & aqua mineral (con gas) to wash it down.
We're inveterate food snobs and Portugal was the start of something beautiful. We had one night in Coimbra, Anja sent us to Flor de Coimbra. It took us a while to find this little gem of a restaurant. We took the vernacular cable car down the hill to the maze of streets below. Round and round in circles we went, finally spotting stairs to the promised feast. A meal in Portugal may cost double what it does back home, but you can safely halve it and come away stuffed. Goat meat isn't our idea of fun so we ordered the Lamb option. The Lamb is boiled in port & red wine for hours and served on the bone. What arrived on our table was a gargantuan pile of meat chunks. Chunks...the butcher
must be blind. He wildly swung his cleaver hacking out these irregular, angular shapes off the carcass - I imagine.
Rich, earthy, tender, succulent lamb in a light, oily, meaty, marrow broth results.
We'd already been plied with the bread, olives & cheese that precede every meal here. We couldn't finish the lamb and didn't have the gall or the language skills to request a doggy bag. So sadly we waddled out of the restaurant with no room for dessert but happily full nevertheless.
Portugal clings to the side of the Iberian peninsula with undulating to hilly terrain. Coimbra has a river cutting deep down through the town leaving roughly a 3rd of the old city over the bridge(s). We took a walk across the brand-new footbridge, passing-over kayakers in the fast, shallow muddygreen waters to the far bank. Where a Church used to lie underwater because the river kept rising & rising. Old Europe is a bit like a large warehouse. Finally full, with no more space for new things they old have recycled & reclaimed the old. Along came modern technology and the church that lay buried for hundreds of years under the riverbed is being excavated
& restored.
Between the church restoration & the river stretches a brand-new park. No one was in it. They like the old stuff here. Sooner or later when the trees grow & the shade drapes over the gravel expanse, the people will come to appreciate the park like the narrow cobbled streets they live in.
* Sadly, many places we visited including the library you aren't allowed to take photos. I do apoligise. There's always Google Images.
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