In the historic heart of the city, high above the Mondego, lie the
cathedrals, university and a fine museum, but a first impression of Coimbra
is likely to be of commerce, not culture. Shops, traffic and the railway
rule the riverside and around the Praça do Comércio. The Largo da Portagem
is a useful starting point, and river trips depart from nearby, alongside
the Parque Dr Manuel Braga.

From Largo da Portagem, Rua Ferreira Borges leads past shops, lively bars,
restaurants and pastelarias  to the Praça do Comércio. In
one corner of this bustling square stands the church of São
Tiago . Its plain façade is a restoration of the 12th-century
original, but inside is an exuberant Rococo altarpiece in gilded wood.

Running north of the Praça do Comércio, Rua Visconde da Luz leads to the
Praça 8 de Maio and the historic church of Santa Cruz. Portugal’s first
two kings are buried here, and monks from the adjacent monastery of Santa
Cruz tutored the first students at Coimbra university.

Beyond Praça 8 de Maio is Rua da Sofia, the “street of wisdom”, named after
the theological colleges that once stood here. The convent churches to which
they were attached remain: the Igreja do Carmo  (1597),
with a 16th-century retable, and the Igreja da Graça ,
founded by João III in 1543. The nearby Pátio da Inquisição is a reminder
that Coimbra, like Lisbon and Évora, wasa seat in the 16th century of the
fiercely-intolerant Inquisition.

The altered and restored 12th-century Arco de Almedina , off
the Rua Ferreira Borges, is the gateway to the old city (in Arabic medina  means town). Steps lead up past the Torre de Anto , whose Renaissance windows and medallions are from
the workshop of the 16th-century sculptor, Jean de Rouen. The tower now
houses an arts and crafts gallery.

Among the houses lining the maze of steep alleys that wind up to the top of
the hill are a number of repúblicas , student lodgings
since medieval times.

Coimbra’s two cathedrals, Sé Velha  and Sé Nova, lie in the shadow of
the hilltop university.
Beyond is the upper town’s main square, Praça da República.

It is worth crossing the river just to admire the view of old Coimbra. The
two convents of Santa
Clara on the southern bank have close ties with Santa Isabel, and
with Inês de Castro, Pedro I’s luckless lover, who was stabbed to death here
in 1355 (see The murder of Inês
De Castro). A romantic legend tells how a spring, the Fonte dos Amores , rose on the spot. This can be seen in
the garden of the 18th-century Quinta das Lágrimas, now a hotel, just south
of Santa Clara-a-Velha.

The fortress-style Old Cathedral is widely regarded as the finest Romanesque
building in Portugal, a celebration in stone of the triumph over the Moors
in 1064. The nation’s first king, Afonso Henriques, made the city of Coimbra
his capital and his son, Sancho I, was crowned here in 1185, soon after the
cathedral was completed.

Inside, square piers lead the eye up the nave to the flamboyant retable over
the altar. The work of Flemish woodcarvers in about 1502, this depicts the
birth of Christ, the Assumption and many saints. A 16th-century altarpiece
in the south transept is also highly decorated, as is the Manueline font,
thought to be by Diogo Pires the Younger. In contrast is the quiet restraint
of the cloister, built in 1218 but restored in the 18th century.

The tomb of the city’s first Christian governor, Sisinando (a Moslem convert
who died in 1091), lies in the chapterhouse, and in the north aisle is the
tomb of the Byzantine Dona Vetaça (died 1246), tutor to the wife of King
Dinis, the saintly Queen Isabel.

New is a relative term, as this church, a short walk from the university, was
founded by the Jesuits in 1598. (Their adjacent Colégio das Onze Mil Virgens
is today part of the sciences faculty.) The Jesuit Order was banned by the
Marquês de Pombal in 1759 but their church became the episcopal seat in
1772. Jesuit saints still look out from the façade.

The interior, more spacious than the Sé Velha, is barrel-vaulted, with a dome
over the crossing. To the left of the entrance is a Manueline-style
octagonal font brought, like the choir stalls, from the Sé Velha. The
paintings above the stalls are copies of Italian masters. The altarpiece in
the 17th-century chancel, featuring more Jesuit saints, is flanked by a pair
of 18th-century organs.

The elegant 16th-century loggias and courtyards of the former bishops’ palace
are the setting for the display of some of Portugal’s finest sculpture –
Joaquim Machado de Castro (1731–1822) was himself a master sculptor. Among
the medieval pieces is an endearing knight holding a mace. Also in the
collection, along with furnishings and vestments, are paintings from the
12th to 20th centuries, including an early 16th-century work, The Assumption of Mary Magdalen , by the Master of Sardoal.

An intriguing feature is the Criptoportico de Aeminium, a maze of underground
passages holding a collection of Roman sculpture and stelae and Visigothic
artefacts.

Founded by the canons of St Augustine in 1131, the church and monastery of
Santa Cruz are rich in examples of the city’s early 16th-century school of
sculpture. Carvings by Nicolau Chanterène and Jean de Rouen adorn the
church’s Portal da Majestade, designed by Diogo de Castilho in 1523. The
chapterhouse by Diogo Boitac is Manueline in style, as are the Claustro do
Silêncio and the choir stalls, carved in 1518 with a frieze about
exploration. Portugal’s first two kings, Afonso Henriques and Sancho I, were
reinterred here in 1520. Their elaborate tombs are thought to be by
Chanterène, also buried here.

These, Portugal’s largest botanical gardens, were created in 1772 when the
Marquês de Pombal introduced the study of natural history at the University
of Coimbra.

The entrance, near the 16th-century aqueduct of São Sebastião, leads into 20
ha (50 acres) devoted to a remarkable collection of some 1,200 plants,
including many rare and exotic species. The gardens are used for research,
but are laid out as pleasure gardens, with greenhouses and a wild area
overlooking the Mondego.

Santa Isabel, the widow of King Dinis, had the convent of Santa Clara rebuilt
for her retreat. She died in 1336 in Estremoz but was buried
here, in the convent church. Inês de Castro was also laid to rest here 20
years later, but was re-entombed at Alcobaça.

Almost from the day it was built, Santa Clara suffered from flooding; it was
finally abandoned in 1677. In 1696 Santa Isabel’s remains were moved to the
Convent of Santa Clara-a-Nova. The original Gothic church, in silted ruins
since the late 1600s, is now at last being restored.

The vast “new” convent of the Poor Clares was built between 1649 and 1677 to
house the nuns from Santa Clara-a-Velha on drier land uphill. The building
was designed by a mathematics professor, João Turriano, and although
intended as a convent, now serves in part as a barracks for the army. In the
richly Baroque church, pride of place is given to the silver tomb of Santa
Isabel, installed in 1696 and paid for by the people of Coimbra. The saint’s
original tomb, a single stone, lies in the lower choir and polychrome wooden
panels in the aisles tell the story of her life. The convent’s large
cloister, built by the Hungarian Carlos Mardel, was contributed in 1733 by
João V, a generous benefactor who was well-known for his charity to
nuns.

Set in a pretty park, Portugal dos Pequenitos is a world in miniature where
children and adults alike can explore scaled-down versions of Portugal’s
finest national buildings, whole villages of typical regional architecture,
and pagodas and temples representing the far-flung reaches of the former
Portuguese empire.