As part of my year abroad, I was lucky enough to spend four months in the centre of Portugal, in the university city of Coimbra.
I knew nothing about Coimbra before I arrived, just that it had a very old university and was a great Erasmus spot. My first impressions of Coimbra when I arrived was the hills! Coimbra is very hilly, a lot like Lisbon in that respect and is full of cobbled streets, which are charming to look at but not so much when you're dragging your suitcase up them to get to your apartment.
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| worth the hike for this view! |
The first few days was a bit manic. We still hadn't found an apartment where we were going to spend the next four months so that was a tad stressful. We also had to sign up to all of our classes and figure out which ones would suit us. The University is actually on a hill at the highest point of the city, which was fun. Nothing beats an early morning hike to registration in 30 degree heat! During our apartment search, we also had to hike all the way up what may as well have been a mountain to find a possible flat only to realise the landlord hadn't showed up for our appointment. A few days in, we eventually found a place on the Rio Mondego, right above Burger King. It was 15 mins hike from the uni and we also got discount off Burger King which was definitely taken advantage on our hungover days.
The city itself is very small and beautiful. The Rio Mondego is gorgeous and there's a small park you can walk around to take in the river view. The Botanical Gardens are worth a visit and the University itself is very beautiful and offers a breathtaking view of the city below. The Igreja de Santa Cruz is another pretty site and was a stone's throw from our apartment and surrounding it are many boutiques and cafés. Get lost in the little side streets around the church and you may find a bargain or a charming restaurant - we found a traditional Portuguese restaurant down the side of Lefties which had the most mouthwatering chicken and baby potatoes I've ever tasted. Fonte de Amores at Quinta das Lagrimas across the river is a nice spot as it is supposedly where an ancient love story began between Pedro and Inês. There is an old archway covered in vines which looks like it belongs in Romeo and Juliet, however the fountain is little more than a tiny trickle of water!
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| Where for art thou Romeo? |
Up the mountain (I mean road), there's Praça da Republica, the centre of Coimbra's nightlife. Mandarim and What's Up Doc were my favourite bars to go for some tequila and a Somersby. Blue House is a student house on the road to Praca da Republica where loads of international and native students hang out to drink and have fun. I don't know if I would want to live there though as there's so many strangers coming in and out of it! There's also a Samba night in the Gin Club every Saturday which is good craic and NB Club is the main nightclub if you really want to bust out your best moves. Sé Velha is another nightlife spot - people gather in the bars and pubs around the old church to drink and have fun.
Coimbra is well and truly a student's city. You're always bumping into classmates and there's lots of student offers in the restaurants and bars. At the start of the semester, there's a student tradition called Praxe which is basically like initiation week or hell week in the US where the students have to humiliate themselves by playing games etc and singing and walking around Coimbra holding hands or having to jump down the massive flight of stairs at the university. Erasmus students don't take part thankfully. There are also fraternity houses just like in the US. Another weird student tradition is the Harry Potter-esque cloaks the uni students wear (capa e batinha). As Erasmus students, we didn't have to wear them but it was funny watching people in their full suits and cloaks walking around the campus. It's not unusual to see students in their cloaks performing fado in the street during the day.
There's also a student festival called the Latada. A big stage and a marquee is set up on the other side of the Rio Mondego and there's live music, dancing, food and drink stalls and fairground rides. During the day, the students run around with cans (latas) tied to their feet and singing student chants - weird, I know!
The nightlife in Portugal is crazy by the way. People usually don't go out until midnight and they get to the club at 2 or 3am which is normally when I head home to bed in Belfast. The drinks are extremely cheap too and I think my liver will never forgive me for what I put it through (hello Caipirinhas). Pingo Doce are also constantly doing offers on wine and cider, which wasn't always such a good idea! Try Offley's Porto Ruby btw, it's good.
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| Coimbra Crew |
My apartment was very international. There was a couple from Poland who were the sweetest people ever, a guy from Finland, an Italian, Spanish guys and Portuguese natives too. A few of us formed a tight-knit group at the very beginning - the Coimbra Crew aka River House Residents - and we spent many nights with a bottle of wine and a guitar, sitting out on the roof of our apartment or singing songs by the river or walking up to Sé Velha for cocktails or the Passport bar for Ruby Porto and a view of the river.
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| Colourful buildings in Coimbra |
The food in Coimbra is good if you find the right places. Down the big flight of stairs at the university, there's a small canteen which does amazing pastries and frango panado sandwiches for very little money. Go downtown and cross the river and you'll find cheap restaurants serving bifanas - Portuguese pork steak sandwich. Near the train station, there's the Loja dos Pasteis de Chaves which serves bagels and also pasteis de chaveis - little layered pastries with different fillings - you can get a nutella one by the way and they are amazing. And if you have a sweet tooth, Coimbra is heaven as it has many cafe's selling crepes, waffles, churros and ice-cream. Get a giant meringue at the Pastelario Briosa at Portagem. Kako near the Igreja de Santa Cruz serve amazing churros with nutella and Dolce Coimbra in the Praça do Comercio serve mouthwatering crepes with strawberries and chocolates. Also try the hot chocolate in the vending machines at the uni - they're as addictive as crack for 40c a cup. There's also lots of restaurants in Alta offering fado shows (this is near Sé Velha and is pretty to walk around as there are tiny cobbled streets and souvenir shops). I definitely didn't cut down on food while I was in Coimbra - we used to buy magdalenas, chocolate bars, doritos and olive oil crisps every weekend and Burger King was also literally right under our noses! Hiking around Coimbra definitely helps though!
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| yummmm... |
Of course there were some challenges during my time away.
Very soon after arriving, I got a mosquito bite which got infected from some dirty water (don't dip your hand in the fountain at Igreja da Santa Cruz no matter how much you're sweating in the summer heat). I ended up having to walk an hour to the emergency room at Coimbra's Celas hospital. We spent half the evening there and then had to walk around Coimbra in the night to find a 24 hour pharmacy for antibiotics! So that was stressful. The most stressful parts of my placement was definitely sorting out the contract of our apartment, struggling to understand our classes and opening a bank account. It felt like you had to jump through ten rings of fire to open a bank account with the amount of documents and copies required. We also had a problem with our contract with the landlord which delayed the opening of a bank account even more. Furthermore, the classes in the university were a struggle because there wasn't much help given to the international students (we literally didn't receive our student cards until the day before we left and by that time we couldn't be bothered climbing the hill to get them!) Finding the classrooms was also a struggle at first. One of the students gave us a series of directions to find a classroom (go to the statue of Dom Joao, turn left at the setting of the sun, theres a small road, wait until the cock crows three times and then you may enter etc.) Okay, I'm exaggerating but we were walking around in circles to find one class! One benefit for us was that our classes didn't count towards our degree at home so we technically didn't have to go. Our culture modules were very challenging as they required a lot of work and the professors spoke at the speed of light (I still don't understand what cairn is and how it relates to Portuguese culture but our lecturer went on about it for two hours). In the last few weeks, we decided to make the most of our time in Portugal and travel and attend a few language classes here and there.
I should also mention the shopping in Coimbra. As a self confessed shopaholic, I spent many a weekend at Forum Coimbra or Coimbra Shopping. They have great stores like Lefties, Bershka, Pimkie, Stradivarius, Zara and H&M so if you like Spanish brands they're your place to go. Forum Coimbra also has a cinema and a fab food court and they have a meal/cinema combo deal certain nights of the week.
As well as Aveiro, we visited a few other cities in Portugal - Porto, Guimarães and Lisbon.
Porto was beautiful and very rustic and traditionally Portuguese. It has beautiful old buildings and monuments. Guimarães is a very quiet city with a charming castle, pretty boutiques and was also where Portugal originates. On the side of an old building reads 'Aqui nasceu Portugal'. We also went to Fatima - a pretty weird pilgrimage site but hey it was an experience even if we ended up trapped on a bus full of Portuguese school-kids and nearly missing our train back to Coimbra.
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| My city! |
We also visited Lisbon in December which looked beautiful with its Christmas decorations and a giant lit up tree in Praça de Comercio.
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| Sunset on the Rio Tejo in Lisbon |
Coimbra also has pretty decorations during the winter. There are lights on the birdge of the Rio Mondego and also down the streets which were beautiful to look at when we climbed on to the roof of our apartment.
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| Christmas lights in Coimbra |
I have fabulous memories of my time in Coimbra and hope to return one day. The city will always be in my heart. It was an amazing place to spend my Erasmus placement in and I am so thankful I had the opportunity to live there for four months.
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| An emotional farewell |
I'll leave you with a fado song about Coimbra by the Queen of Fado, Amalia Rodrigues.
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