Coimbra

Today we drove to the Conimbriga Roman Ruins. It's about a hour drive from our B&B.

This is Portugal's best Roman sight and it is impressive - unless you've been to Rome. What remains of the Roman city is divided in two, in part because its inhabitants tore down buildings to erect a defensive wall against an expected barbarian attack. Today this wall cuts through the site. The house of Fountains is an entire dwelling with most of its rooms and mosaics intact and it is beautiful. Those photos will be at end end. It is surprising how much of the mosaics are saved in the open areas.

Poppies are blooming all over!

Triangular shaped bricks - these folks were ingenious.

 

Love this manhole cover!

These tiles are from the Swaztica House. A description of the use of the Swaztica by the Ronans is below. An interesting history note about Hitler's use of it - he wanted the third global empire like the Romans.

 

This is the beginning of the photos from the House of Fountains. Keep in mind that we are only seeing the basement and street levels. Can you image what was built above ground as dear as the houses are concerned.

 

 

Part of the city walls

 

 

 

 

 

This was one of the arches leading into the old city of Coimbra

This is the lower section of stairs leading to the old university

 

This is the upper section see Ernie standing at the top shouting Merida!

We were having coffee and pastries and I looked down and saw this Pidgeon scrounging crumbs on the floor. He was just one of several.

These are photos of the house were are staying in. Pretty cool don't you think?

 

This is a tile mural above their garage

When we got back to the car, the GPS wouldn't work and we panicked. It was about 85 degrees outside and we left her on the window. She obviously overheated. Unplugged her and got her out of the sun to let her cool. We had no choice but to try to get ourselves to Coimbra without her assistance. It was quite hairy and we quickly learned how totally reliant we were on this marvelous technology. We were almost to Coimbra and took the wrong exit off the round-about and were lost. While Ernie was trying to figure out where we needed to go, I lovingly held our GPS and spoke nicely to her plugged her in, hit the reset button and said a pray. Lo and behold she started! Amen, Alleluia!

Found the free parking lot and walked across the river to get lunch and visit the old university and church but first in the agenda was lunch. After our requisite two hour lunch, we headed off for more sightseeing. Ernie was using he favorite word quite a lot - Merida (a play on the French word merde which means shit). He uses that whenever he sees stairs and hills. The old university was at the top of a street that is named the Street of Broken Ribs. At one time, this lane had no steps and literally was the street of broken ribs because during a strong rain, this street becomes a river and falling was inevitable. Today there are stairs, 54 or the. With multiple landings scattered throughout. As I said, Ernie used his favorite word a lot.

Oh, we've been very fortunate with not encountering mosquitoes or other bugs. Well they found us last night! We left the bathroom and one of the bedroom windows open and woke up with multiple bits on the parts of our bodies that weren't covered by the sheet. Came home from Coimbra this afternoon (of course windows still open) and the ceiling was covered with the little buggers. Took a whole to kill them all but we were not going to be denied! We should wake up tomorrow morning only with the remnants of the old bites and no new ones.

Tomorrow is an laid back day for us as we are just going to tour Alcobaća and not have to drive anywhere. Sunday we will visit Fatima and Monday is a beach day in Nazaré. The weather has been in the 80s during the day and a beach day is in order.

 

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