I spent my second week in Portugal in Coimbra, the city's former capital and a beautiful medieval town. It's a much smaller city than Porto, and really gave me the chance to move more slowly.
I stayed in a cute little studio apartment (where I started writing this from). I was initially staying in a private room in a hostel, but booked the wrong dates, and they didn't have any availability for the dates I needed. The apartment I stayed in was a little further out of the city centre, but it was beautiful and relaxing, which more than made up for it.
Staying in shared dorms in a Hostel, like I did last week in Porto, really makes me feel like I should always be doing something - it feels quite weird to just be chilling in your bed in a shared dorm (or at least it does for me!)
I didn't have this feeling staying in a private studio apartment. Having an entire space to myself, as well as being in a smaller city with less feeling of rushing around to do things really gave me the permission and space I needed to spend a couple of days doing nothing at all. I'm trying to constantly remind myself that part of the goal for my sabbatical is to relax, not just see loads of stuff. I think being in Coimbra has really helped me with that. At first, I was worried that I was spending too long here, and that I'd run out of things to do, and become restless. Instead, I've had a wonderful week, where I've been able to find balance.
So, what did I do?
📍This is my list of places that I thought looked interesting, I didn't go to all of them - but I used them to help structure my days and decide what to do.
| Day | What I did |
|---|---|
| Monday | Arrived, relaxed, and unpacked. IT was really nice to be able to actually unpack and spread out! Hostels are amazing for affordability and being able to visit places where hotel prices would break the bank, but spreading out your stuff and having private areas (especially after a week of not having that) is amazing |
| Tuesday | <ul><li> Took a walk into the city, on the way there I stumbled across Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Nova. It was €5 to access all the areas and have a tour. The tour was just me and two others, and the host was great. This was really good value for money, and I would recommend it. I don't typically visit loads of churches, and when I do - I avoid going to paid ones, but this one was really interesting. Especially the tomb of Queen St Isabel </li><li> After that, I kept walking into the town and sat in the park along the river for a while Parque da Cidade Manuel Braga</li><li>Then I went for some lunch at Arcada Comes e Bebes. This was such a cute restaurant on one of the tiny cobbled streets in Coimbra. This restaurant stays open til around 4pm before closing until the evening. It's worth remembering that a lot of restaurants end their lunch service around 3-4pm and then dpn't reopen until any time between 6-8pm. This was especially true in Coimbra, and I was guilty of forgetting it a couple of times. </li><li>I went to a supermarket to buy some provisions for the apartment (wine, beer, strawberries, bread), a kilo of strawberries cost me less than €2! Two really good bottles of Vinho Verde (a Portugese special wine, and one of my favourite wines anyway) was around €4. (If you've spent any time in East London, you'll be familiar with Chin Chin - this is a typical Portugese Vinho Verde, but imagine it at €2-5 a bottle instead of £12-15</li><li>This was so much cheaper than London, but also so much cheaper than Porto or Lisbon!</li></ul> |
| Wednesday | <ul> <li> Swam at the Municipal Olympic Pool, this was the only time I managed to swim in Portugal sadly, but it was a good experience. It was a lane per person rather than speed based lanes which was really cool. I think it cost €2,70 for a swim.</li> <li>Then I walked to and around the Botanic Gardens of the University of Coimbra, they're free to enter and super relaxing. </li> <li> Then I ate dinner at Sete. The food was good, I had a steak with some cheesy potato thing. It was a great spot to watch people walk past</li><li> Then I got some pastries from [Briosa])(https://maps.app.goo.gl/LyXD5MYY34bM92pZ9) and went home.</ul> |
| Thursday | <ul><li>This was the big one, I took the journey out to the Buçaco National Forest. The train there was actually a rail replacement bus, which gave me fond memories of being home in the UK. The forest was more of a mountain range, and the AllTrails route I did took me up about 500m over about 3km (the other 3km was downhill). I was exhausted and underprepared, but also it was beautiful, so I don't regret it.</li><li> The end of the walk brought me to the Bussaco Palace Hotel, a stunning luxury hotel and former convent. I sat in the bar and had a couple wines to recover, this place was genuinely beautiful.</li><li>After this I was pretty wrecked, and I didn't fancy wrangling the rail replacmeent buses again, so I got a taxi home.</li> |
| Friday | I did absolutely nothing other than watch Netflix, this was my recovery day. I think I watched the new Black Mirror season. It was watchable but not exactly lifechanging.</li></ul> |
| Saturday | <ul><li>Ate soup and chanfana at Cozinha da Maria. The chanfana was lifechanging, like seriously tender goat meat just falling off the bone. It was also pretty rainy that day (well around that time anyway, it brightened up later) so it definitely fit the vibe. </li> <li> Then I visited National Museum Machado de Castro, which was really interesting. I didn't actually do much research in advance, which is pretty out of character for me but I guess I was getting tired of all my research by this point. It had everything from romain ruins to cool Azulejo tiles, I particularly liked seeing the ones that were previously used for teaching. It also had terracotta casts of The Last Supper. Also, the museum has a bar with great views, so of course I had a beer there. (I don't actually normally drink very much, but when it's not ridiculously expensive and it's a bit sunny I can be tempted) </li></ul> |
| Sunday | I did my laundry and prepared to leave to go to Lisbon the next day. At this point, I was just excited to see Zev! |
My worry about a week being too much was unfounded in the end. It was nice to be in a smaller place, with fewer tourists (yes, I know I am also a tourist). It was great to not jam pack my days full of back to back things and to stretch things out over a week. It was also a welcome treat to have my own private space. I definitely would return to Coimbra, it was the perfect balance of relaxing, but also with plenty of stuff to do. I'd love to come here with Zev. I think Coimbra might be an underrated jewel in Portugal's crown, or at least underrated to me. And to be honest, I actually knew very little about Portugal before visiting.