We now have the early morning scheduled visits behind us, that means we’re back to our more relaxed vacation schedule. The only things that have a time attached to them is our Pinhão check-out deadline at 11:00 and our Coimbra check-in window starting at 15:00. Nothing to be stressed about and that’s how we like it.
We slept in until late morning, packed our bags and dropped them in the car before heading out for “brunch” at 📍Nature & River. How that name makes sense for a restaurant instead of a nature tour company or environmental activist group, I do not know. Just going by the name I would have expected people offering kayak rides on the Douro. On top of that it’s a restaurant that positions itself as vegetarian but offers a bacon and egg on toast. It’s all very confusing. Maybe that’s the point, confuse your patrons so they don’t have any real expectations so they cannot be disappointed? In any case, their coffee and food execution was at an acceptable level, however the pastry shop still wins in the breakfast department. They do offer sandwiches and ice-cream too, so they might be better at one of those and we would not know.
After brunch we set out to drive to the 📍Ruínas de Conímbriga. It’s a 2,5-hour drive from Pinhão (just a little under 200km). The area was originally settled by the Celtic Castro culture as early as the 9th century BCE (before the Romans). The city flourished during the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, eventually featuring public baths, an aqueduct, and a forum. Following attacks by Germanic Sueves tribes (around the 5th century CE), the city was abandoned, which ironically helped preserve its structures from being built over in later centuries. During the visit we’ve encountered some traces of the pre-roman settlement (some imaginatively arranged rocks in what could be considered shapes of building under large platforms). Mostly we saw Roman ruins with houses of large proportions and a well reconstructed internal yard. We were a little taken aback by a coin operated water feature towards the end that’s meant to simulate what the interior courtyard of the best preserved house looked like.
One of the questions we kept asking ourselves is why cities seemed to be built on top of older cities. That’s a recurring theme for manu ruin sites that date back to Roman times. Turns out ancien cities were often built directly on top of older ruins as completely clearing away massive stone or mud-brick structures required immense labor, making it often much easier to simply level the collapsed walls and use the debris as a stable, elevated foundation for new buildings. The process naturally raised the elevation of the city over time, which provided better protection against both floods and invading forces. Also, there was a reason why the older city was located there and the conquering force agreed with it.
After our visit, we drove the 20 minutes or so to the center of Coimbra, parked the car for the rest of our stay in the city and checked in to our apartment for the next two nights. Coimbra is a university town. One of the oldest, still running, universities in Europe is on top of the city (literally on the of the hill the city was built around). With a hundred and forty thousand inhabitants, it’s a medium size city that can be visited in a day. That’s exactly what we planned for tomorrow.
After arriving we went for a light snack of absolutely perfect cinnamon buns and delightful coffee at 📍Nau Coffee. They truly care about making good coffee, offering different single origins listed on a whiteboard with flavour profiles. Our kind of coffee place.
After coffee we grabbed some essentials at the local 📍Pingo Doce and headed out walking along the river before dinner. The 📍Parque da Cidade Manuel Braga connects to the 📍Ponte Pedonal Pedro e Inês and offer respectively a tranquil walk in the shade along the Mondego river that splits the city in two and a perfect view of the hill and the university atop it. It’s a perfect way to spend an hour chilling and enjoying the river and the city view.
Dinner was at 📍SAFRA, a Michelin recommended restaurant. We were a little taken aback as the entrance seems to be at the back of the restaurant and you have to ring to get the single server to let you in. At 20:00 we were the first to arrive and the restaurant got to about three quarters full by 21:00. The concept is around sharing plates and the menu is short. The food was well prepared and super tasty. Everything we look for in a restaurant. What made it weird is that at 20:00 we were the first and, as far as we could tell, the whole restaurant is run by one chef and the one server. Based on their respective age we theorized they were mother and son, the former doing service and latter making the food. It’s a story we tell ourselves and there are no ways for us to know if we’re right but reality is what you make of it so in our world they are!
It was our longest dinner to date lasting over two hours. After that we went back to our appartement and got in for the night. Tomorrow will be the city and, more importantly, the university visit.