18:22:48 05/08/2022

We drove from Nazare to Combria this morning with a quick stop at the Monastery at Alcobaça.  The monestary is huge with grand cloisters, very large open dormitories and dining halls for about 450 monks.  The monestary also inlcuded a massive church, one of the largest in Europe.  The stop was worth it, the site is enormous, and fantastic, you can envision easily a large number of monks roaming the corridors and halls of this large facility.

With our visit in Alcobaça finished, we headed to Coimbra.  Navigating the major highways in Portugal is easy, driving is another thing though.  The people here like to tailgate, to the point where you can't see the headlights of the car behind you, and they like to pull in, in front of you with very little space between cars, I think they are still figuring out how to drive on highways here.  They could use some lessons from north americans.

Entering into Coimbra, this is a large city with some wide streets, and finding our hotel was not a chore at all.  No where near as stressful as driving in Nazare where all the streets are narrow and one way.  After checking in, we parked the car, the hotel has underground parking; not as scary as Nazare, but still the parking spots are tight, made for small cars really (won't be accepting the upgrade to a larger car next time).

After getting settled we ventured out to visit the city.  We followed Rick Steeves guide and made our way to the nearest neighbourhood square and started our venture from site to site.  The town is busy, its really a busy little university town with students everywhere.  We made our way along the main shopping street, with cafe's dotting the pedestrian only throughfare with their tables, chairs and umbrellas.  It was lunch time so we sat down to get a quick bite before climbing to the top of the city where the university is located.

Food was simple, Krista had a salad and I had a procuitto sandwich with some fries (the fries were cold eh...)

We explored some more making our way to the next square, and then around the corner to where there was supposed to be an elevator that would take us up to the university.  Well we're not sure what happened but the elevator did not work for us, we pressed buttons, waited and nothing happened, so... up the hill we climbed, and it was not a small hike.  I think we are getting stronger because we didn't have to stop for too many breaks.  Finally making it to the top of the hill we found one square, which we might have though was where we needed to be to see the library, but no it was not so more walking was necessary.  Our tickets give us access to the library but only at specific times, they only allow up to 60 people in the faciltiy at any time, our time was 3:00pm.  

Entering into the library you are first faced with the prison, a few cells where those who broke the rules would spend a little time.  Then the next floor was the preamble to one of the oldest libraries in the world.  It was worth the hike up the hill, this library is spectacular, with high ceilings and stacks of books to the ceilings.  Ornately decorated with gold leaf finishes.  The library is broken up into three sections each with large tables set for researchers to do their work.  It is a working library, researchers can take books out when needed.  Each group only gets 20 minutes total to view the entire facility, with 10 minutes only in the main library.  This is the library where they keep bats to eat the moths that may destroy the books, we did not see any bats.

We then made our way down to the main street again, stopped for a snack and there was a group from the university performing in the street, there were quite a few of them, 10 I believe playing instruments from an accordian and bass, to flutes, mandolin, and guitar, they sang university songs and danced for any on lookers.  Not that I understood any of what they were singing but they were very good.

Tonight we are going to have dinner at a restaurant right across the street from the hotel, and then to a place where they perform Fado.

Dinner was great, again.  The place we chose specialized in cod fish, and the dish I chose was based on salted cod. Krista chose a pork dish and we shared.  The way the prepare the cod is they dry and salt it after catching it out in the open, then when it comes time to eat they then cook and prepare it.  The fish is great and salty.

We then headed to see Fado, the Fado here compared to what we experienced in Lisbon is the men sing here and he was acompanied by only one Portugese guitar player and one 6-string guitar player.  All three were very good.  They changed it up as well, some pieces had all three performing others only the guitar players, very nice for 23 euro, which included a glass of wine and an espresso each.

We are off to the Douro valley tomorrow - we will be staying at a Quinta (Winery).