Coimbra

Portugal's oldest university town, with the Baroque Joanina Library, students in black capes and Coimbra fado, plus Roman ruins and a forest palace nearby.

Coimbra sits on the Mondego River in central Portugal, between Lisbon and Porto. It was Portugal's first capital and is home to one of Europe's oldest universities; "University of Coimbra – Alta and Sofia" was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2013. The old town is split between the hilltop Alta (Upper Town: the university, the Old and New Cathedrals and museums) and the Baixa (Lower Town: Santa Cruz Monastery, shopping streets and the market). On the south bank are the monasteries of Santa Clara-a-Velha and Santa Clara-a-Nova, the Quinta das Lágrimas and the Portugal dos Pequenitos miniature park. The best times to visit are Mar–Jun and Sep–Oct; in early May the whole city celebrates the students' Queima das Fitas festival. Summers are hot and dry, and winters rainy but quiet. Getting there: high-speed trains from Lisbon and Porto reach Coimbra-B station in about 1–2 hours; from there, change to Coimbra station in the centre or take a taxi. The old town is steep with many stone steps – use the Mercado elevator to save your legs. Allow 2–3 days: one for the university and Upper Town, one for the Lower Town and south bank, and an optional day trip to Conímbriga and the Buçaco Forest, or to Aveiro, Fátima and Batalha. University sights have timed entry, so book ahead in high season, and catch a Coimbra fado performance in the evening.

Top sights

• University of Coimbra – Paço das Escolas – Portugal's oldest university. The college square formed by the old royal palace on the hilltop, along with the bell tower and assembly hall…
• Biblioteca Joanina – An 18th-century Baroque library with gilded, carved bookcases holding about 60,000 volumes. According to a famous story, bats guard the old…
• Old Cathedral of Coimbra – A 12th-century Romanesque cathedral with a fortress-like appearance, its thick walls and battlements resembling a stronghold. It is one of…
• New Cathedral of Coimbra – A former Jesuit college church with a lavish gilded Baroque altar. From the roof you can overlook Coimbra's Old Town and the river valley.
• Monastery of Santa Cruz – The burial place of Afonso I, the first king of Portugal, with an exquisite Manueline portal and walls covered in blue-and-white 18th-centu…
• Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Velha – A 14th-century Gothic monastery buried for centuries under silt from the Mondego River. Excavations have revealed part of its church and cl…
• Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Nova – A 17th-century monastery on a hillside, housing the silver coffin of Saint Elizabeth, patron saint of Coimbra.
• Conímbriga – One of the largest ancient Roman town ruins in Portugal, with well-preserved mosaic floors in the House of the Fountains.
• Machado de Castro National Museum – A national museum in a former bishop's palace, with a Roman-era cryptoporticus preserved underground and a fine collection of medieval scul…
• Portugal dos Pequenitos – A miniature theme park opened in 1940, with scaled-down Portuguese houses, landmarks, and buildings from former colonies.
• Quinta das Lágrimas – The setting of the tragic love story of Pedro and Inês, with the Fountain of Tears and centuries-old trees creating a romantic, quiet atmos…
• Botanical Garden of the University of Coimbra – The university's botanical garden, founded in 1772 by the Marquis of Pombal, with terraced gardens, a bamboo grove, and an iron-framed gree…
• Arco de Almedina & Quebra-Costas – The gate of the Moorish-era city walls. Passing through it, you climb the steep Quebra-Costas street to the upper town and the university.
• Café Santa Cruz – A century-old café set in a former monastery chapel, where you can drink coffee and eat monastery sweets beneath Gothic vaults.
• Mercado Municipal D. Pedro V – A municipal food market in the lower town, with seafood, fruit, cheese, and sausage, and a public lift beside it that takes you straight up…
• Pedro e Inês Footbridge & Parque Verde do Mondego – A modern footbridge whose two halves meet offset in the middle of the river, linking the riverside green parks on either side of the Mondeg…
• Jardim da Sereia (Parque de Santa Cruz) – An 18th-century monastery garden with tile-decorated stepped fountains, grottoes, and shaded avenues. It is a favorite cool spot for locals.
• Penedo da Saudade – A romantic viewpoint where graduates have carved poems to mark their time, overlooking the Mondego valley and distant hills.
• Science Museum of the University of Coimbra – A science museum housed in the former site of a 1773 chemistry laboratory, presenting centuries of scientific instrument collections from t…
• Fado ao Centro – A fado cultural centre beside the Arco de Almedina, staging Coimbra fado sung by male students every evening.
• Bussaco National Forest & Palace – A mysterious forest guarded by monks for centuries, with a fairy-tale palace hotel in New Manueline style at its heart.
• Figueira da Foz – A seaside resort at the mouth of the Mondego River, where Coimbra residents treat the wide beaches as their summer backyard.
• Talasnal Schist Village – A schist stone village in the Lousã mountains, with stone houses in brown and grey climbing the hillside. It is one of Portugal's most beau…
• Castle of Montemor-o-Velho – A medieval castle on a small hill above the Mondego plain, with views over vast rice paddies from its walls.
• Aveiro Canals – The 'Venice of Portugal', where painted gondola-style boats glide along canals lined with Art Nouveau buildings and egg-yolk sweets.
• Costa Nova – A row of fishermen's storehouses on the seafront, striped in red, blue, yellow, and green, separated from the Atlantic beach only by a line…
• Convent of Christ, Tomar – A UNESCO World Heritage monastery within a Knights Templar castle, famous for its sixteen-sided rotunda and grand Manueline window.
• Penacova & Mondego Kayaking – A hilltop town with viewpoints over bends in the Mondego River, and a popular starting point for kayaking downstream toward Coimbra.

Where to eat

• Solar do Bacalhau – Coimbra's only Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurant, specializing in salted codfish at affordable prices, where diners can…
• Zé Manel dos Ossos – An alleyway tavern founded in 1959 with only five or six tables, famous for its signature pork bones and a strict no-re…
• João dos Leitões – A small roast suckling pig eatery opened in 1970, offering wood-fired Bairrada-style suckling pig without having to tra…
• No Tacho – A small restaurant on Rua da Moeda in the Baixa district, highly praised for its clay-pot red wine goat stew (Chanfana)…
• Refeitro da Baixa – A Michelin-selected restaurant set in an 1824 pottery workshop, featuring tableware made on-site and modern takes on re…
• Safra – A husband-and-wife-run sharing plates restaurant housed in a converted warehouse, featuring seasonal ingredients and se…

Itineraries

• Lisbon to Porto Silver Coast – Drive north along the Silver Coast to see walled towns, three historic monasteries, a university city, and the canals o…
• Porto and Northern Portugal by Train – Based in Porto, take trains to Aveiro, Braga and Guimarães, and spend a night in the Pinhão wine village in the Douro V…