Chuck's News: Day 20 - A Day in Coimbra - Thursday, February 23, 2023

We have been watching the weather forecasts the whole time we have been in Portugal, trying to go where the weather looks best. We decided to come north to Porto, Coimbra and Nazare because the forecast here looked good while the Lagos forecast was windy and cloudy. Yet, the weather here up north has not lived up to its promise. It has rained a little everyday; not enough to make us alter any plans we have made, but the glorious all day sun we were hoping to experience has been absent. It pokes its head out for a couple hours a day, then hides behind clouds and allows some rain to fall. Not what we had hoped for, but better than home where it is snowing and well below freezing.

Today, we have a timed entry into the Joanina Library at 10:20am. The library was built in the 1700’s and currently contains about 50,000 volumes, all from the 1700s and 1800s. Concerned for the preservation of the books, the library is shuttered all day to control the humidity and temperature and 60 people are allowed in every 20 minutes for exactly 10 minutes to view the library, then whisked out and the doors are sealed again. Bats live in the building to eat any insects that could burrow into the books. The floor and tables are covered every night to collect the bat guano. Sounds strange, but I guess it works.

We left our lodgings about 8:30am, heading for the university. The weather was perfectly clear, but stunningly cold, about 40° with a wind. We wove our way through the ancient streets up to the university to find many students about, a sharp contrast to yesterday when there were virtually none. Rick Steves has a written tour of the old palace which is now the university, so we used that to tour the main building, seeing how they have utilized throne rooms and anti chambers for classrooms and such. The buildings are very old, hundreds of years, and show their age. I suppose trying to maintain them is expensive and time consuming, yet a little fresh plaster and paint work would vastly improve their appearance.

Part of the tour is the chapel. When we arrived at it the door was closed, but a sign outside said knock. We did, and a docent, in this case the same young woman that sold us our tickets yesterday, opened the chapel door. She recognized us and welcomed us in. We talked with her about the chapel and other aspects of the university. She was delightful.

Time for our tour of the library, or almost. We moved to the entrance and waited with the other 15 people that would enter with us. The sun was warm in spite of the cool air temperature. At the appointed time we were allowed into the prison level of the library. Yes, the library has dungeon like prison cells for wayward students and professors that broke the rules. Talk about strict educational policies.

After a few minutes we moved up a half a floor to a kind of research room with vaulted ceilings, tables and bookcases and then were allowed to climb stairs up to the ornate library itself. It was amazing. Think of Beauty and the Beast and the library Belle is allowed into. This must have been Disney’s animator’s inspiration. See photo from the web below.

We were ushered out the main door after our ten minutes and were back on the main square. We strolled thru campus to the science museum and we’re admitted. This was a normal science museum except many of the things on display were the original pieces of equipment used to make discoveries. As I worked my way thru the displays it reminded me of my days of teaching science. I guess I miss it a little.

After 45 minutes we were out the door and down to town for lunch at a sunny cafe. Soup and bread. So good.

While eating a man in his late thirties or so begged me for some euros, saying he hadn’t eaten yet today. My standard reply is a curt no and I gave it.

After lunch we walked across the square and bought a gigantic loaf of what looked like baked meringue. They wrapped it up. As we walked back thru town to our place the same man begged off us again. We again refused but watched him work the crowd in the street. We passed the hat shop again. This time I stepped inside to see if they had my size in black. They did not. We returned home, ate some of the meringue, rested, then headed back out to buy some gifts, mail a letter to Bob and check out the restaurant we were planning to eat dinner at.

We walked to the post office. Along the way Sally spied a hat in the color she had been hoping for. However, the store was closed for lunch. We continued to the post office. Just as in America, the line was very long and slow moving. We decided to walk to the lotto store where we had read you could buy stamps. On the way we passed Sally’s hat store. Still closed. Must be talking an extended lunch. We also passed my hat store again, but didn’t engage. We were also hit up again by our begging man. We told him this was the fourth time he had asked us. He looked surprised, but said thank you as he did the first three times and moved to the next person. The lotto store said they didn’t sell stamps anymore and we would have to use the post office. Sally couldn’t resist the urge to play a few lotto tickets and excitedly scratched tickets, entertaining the man behind the counter with her antics.

We stopped by a second hat store and saw the same style hat. We stepped inside and the woman said no black ones. I tried on a number of different hats and finally bought the brown leather one. It felt good.

We headed to the restaurant to check it out for dinner. It was half a block off the nearly vacant Commercial Plaza. We met a man standing outside the restaurant, smoking. He started pointing things out on the menu we were inspecting and soon lead us inside to inspect the fish in a deli case. Turned out he worked there and was glad to hear we would be coming back tonight about seven.

Back to the post office. On the way we passed Sally’s hat shop. We could see it was open, but on the other side of the busy street. We went to the post office first, the lines were shorter and got Bob’s letter mailed , then stopped by the shop and got Sally her hat.

We had some extra time and did not have our walking mileage in for the day so we headed back through town and up to the university again, walking streets we had not explored. I told Sally if the guy begging hit us up again I was going to take him to one of the cafes and buy him a meal because he always said he had not eaten today. He did. I asked him to tell us his story, which he did and then made I my offer. I thought he would at least accept the meal. He said no, he would like to buy hamburgers from the vending machine. I again said if you haven’t eaten I will buy you a meal. Again he turned me down. We walked away, wondering what his game was, but feeling a lot less sorry for him.

At the campus we talked to some black robed students, FaceTimed Bill and Pat and descended back to town via another set of streets and returned home to pack and be ready to leave early in the morning.

Our dinner was awesome. The guy we had spent time with earlier in the day treated us like regulars to the restaurant and pampered us through our meal. It was good, but all meat based, which is unusual for us. Grilled fish and grilled shish kabob pork.

Back to the room, and ready for tomorrow.

Main pedestrian street of Coimbra early in the morning before the locals are out.