Coimbra is full of history, including the the Old University and the Medieval Old Town. Like in Porto, there were TONS of hills. I think even some of them were even steeper than Porto. Our legs should be nice and toned from ascending hills by the end of our Portugal trip!
This was the first really hot day of our trip, with the high temperature hitting 30 C. We explored some of the smaller streets of the Old Town and found a Euro Store where everything was literally 1 Euro - so we hit up a few things we had been needing.
We visited some churches in the town and later made our way up to the University. As we were exploring in the park near the river, our Clara tripped and fell and got a little skinned up. This time Alex went to the pharmacist and she had perfect English, so Alex picked up some band aids and spray. At least the injury it wasn’t anything that a little ice cream couldn't cure. :-)
Real Palace & University
We visited the University after lunch and explored the Real Palace there - a King actually resided in the palace. Later it was determined by royalty the university would be housed there. There was a wedding going on at the time so we weren’t able to visit the church there, but we did visit the library, which was pretty unique.
The library was a classic old looking library with books and books on rows and rows of shelves and some tables on it, but unfortunately no photos were allowed inside. Interestingly enough the library houses some really old books, so they get a little help in preserving them is through the other occupants of the library - a colony of bats that come during the night to eat the insects that reside in there. The oak wood also protect them. To protect the tables, they have to put leather covers over things on the ground when it is closed up at night. On the very bottom level of the library they even have little jail cells that were used during medieval times; however, they were used as recently as the 1850’s for university students who needed disciplinary action.
The university courtyard, which housed some main components of the university, had some great views of the valley below.
Portugal dos Pequenitos
We stayed 2 nights in Coimbra, which was the right amount of time. So after we packed up our last morning we went to the Portugal dos Pequenitos, a park for kids that we hoped would be a fun venture for Clara. The adults cost 10 Euro and kids 3+ were 5.95 Euro. The first half of the park was a display of different monuments/places from various countries around the world. They were almost like mini museums, as they had displays of things from each of the places. However, the displays in this part of the park weren’t much of a hit with our 3-year old daughter, unless she saw dolls or something of interest to her.
However, the second part of the park was a little village of little houses that kids could go in and explore. She enjoyed the second part of the park much more! There was also a playground on that side of the park, which was a bonus. The little houses were so cute and they represented different houses of regions of Portugal. The mini churches even had little pews and kneeling benches in them! There was a little Coimbra with the university in it; and one of the rooms was done exactly how it was in the Real Palace as we had seen the day before.
They also had some kid friendly activities, such as a train to ride on (2 Euro per rider) and a craft area where kids can make paintings and get some balloon art. There were a fair number of adults visiting (with no children) as well, so it was a little like a museum. For young kids, I would say quickly make your way through the first part and then spend a majority of your time in the second half.
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