We took a tour of the university and the old town. The picture above is from the oldest part of the university (the patio de escuelas-where the frog is- would be the Salamantino equivalent). There we saw the old library (below) and a richly-decorated chaple, both of which were remnants of Portugal's gold age of exploration.
The University of Coimbra also has many student customs, including their typical dress, which they wear from sophomore year on, and reminded me of Harry Potter robes (they even had black capes).
Coimbra is also home to the oldest living thing in Portugal, which is a 1,000-year-old olive tree that was a gift from the Holy Land. It doesn't look very impressive, but it's really neat to think about all of the change that has happened while this tree has been alive.
Since Portugal is much closer to the ocean, it was warmer and more humid than in Spain, and there were a lot of fun, nearly tropical plants, like the bird of paradise here.On the way to Lisbon, we stopped for lunch in Batalha, Portugal, which is the place where the Portuguese finally beat the Spanish to secure independence. They built an amazing monastery and church with great stained glass.
That evening, when we got to Lisbon, we checked into our hotel and then went to a Brazilian restaurant, where they had amazing black beans and rice and 10 different kinds of meat that the cut from giant skewers onto individual's plates, which was pretty neat.
The next day, it was beautiful in the morning. We drove to Sintra, which is a suburb of Lisbon, to see the royal palace. The palace was ok, but the city itself was a tropical paradise. Everything was lush and green, and just breath-takingly beautiful.
We had some free time after we visited the palace, so we picked a road to walk down, and we came across this waterfall, but then, we turned a corner and found a spectacular garden/ villa that fit my idea of paradise perfectly. It was 9 euros a person to enter, but it was probably the best 9 euros I spent on that trip.
The gardens were actually designed to represent Eden, and they had stone structures hidden in plants and windy paths and nooks and crannies and caves and a secret tunnel. The first floor of the mansion was modeled after Roman villas, but the other floors were just really strange. There was one room with bookshelves along all of the walls a mirrors underneath of them all around the perimeter of the room, so it felt like the room was floating in a never-ending tunnel of books. It was very, very creepy. The towers offered nice views of all of the surrounding area though, but they were really narrow, and not easy to climb up.After Sintra, we headed to Boca do Inferno, which is the furthest west point of mainland Europe. There were some pretty rocks, and the ocean was really big and enticing.
As soon as we left Boca do Inferno (which means mouth of hell in Portuguese), it started to rain, so the rest of the day was much less enjoyable. We rounded out the day with a trip to a monastery in Lisbon, where I got to see some gargoyles spitting water, and a visit to the mariners museum, where I found some nice fossil ammonites.
On our way back to the hotel, we saw a bridge that is nearly the same as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Fransisco. Lisbon also has their very own Christ the Redeemer statute that is the same as the one in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
On our way home from Portugal, we stopped in Fatima, which is a holy city in Portugal where the Virgin Mary appeared to some shepherd children and told them three secrets, which the Vatican has decided were authentic. There were a lot of pilgrims there, and it was really interesting to see all of the intensely faithful people thanking or praying to the Virgin of Fatima.
The bus ride home was really long, and when we got back, my housemate and I realized that we had a stomach bug that kept us pretty miserable for a couple weeks. We were sick the Monday we got back, and missed the important Salamantino holiday of Lunes de las Aguas, Monday of the waters, which celebrates bringing the prostitutes back from the other side of the river, where they had to stay during lent so they couldn't distract people from being good, faithful Catholics.
