Partly because we had heard from so may friends that this was a historic city we must see; and also because of hurricane Ophelia, then screeching across the Atlantci and threatening to hit the coast of Portugal within a few days. Wave heights forecast to be above five metres. I did not like the sound of that!
We had packed all we reckoned to need for a week in a small bag on wheels (only two of them!) and providently brought some food for on the way.
It was hot; l watched the bright colours of the autumn trees, with, in the distance, the shimmer of the sea.
How shall I describe Coimbra? We have a room near the river, in the Baixo, Lower, section of the old city. Wonderful view from our window of the university which tops the hill, illuminated at night.
I've decided to try to send a batch of photos I took in Coimbra (one of the most photogenic cities I have ever had the pleasure to visit!) at a later point. So this will be pure prose.
It grew hotter (going up to 34 degrees centigrade on Sunday) as a result of over-friendly Ophelia.
We puffed up the hill and made mental plans of the intricately zig-zagging cobbled streets, rising often very steeply to the flat top where the university now sits enthroned.
We were extremely lucky to have found (via my friend Amal Chatterjee) a superb guide, in the form of Pedro Ribelo. He arrived as we had arranged, on the morning after the huge forest fires had swept over northern Portugal, and he had had a sleepless night watching th flames as they approached closer to his house. Fortunately the wind changed when they were just 500 metres away from his home.
I felt like saying, "Pedro, if you are feeling shattered after last night, we can plan another day for the sightseeing..." But I have the feeling that he so enjoys telling the history of this town/city that his energy soon returned. Anyway, it was a fact-filled day but also lots of fun, Pedro recounting little anecdotes about some of the places he showed us, quite a lot of climbing but also time to sit down in between, and of course far too short a time to see all we would have liked. But I began to get a feel of this amazingly higgeldy-piggeldy place and I began to understand why one of my Dutch friends, much-travelled, said "Coimbra is like nowhere else!"!
Coimbra has its own Fado music, not the same as the Fado we had heard in Lisboa (Lisbon). We reserved places in the Fado Capela for Saturday night, arriving about nine p.m. and being given the last two seats in the back of the small chapel. The singer was a young man, accompanied by a Portuguese classical guitar and a Coimbra guitar. These two in combination produced a sound to wake the angels. It was as if I could hear a chord of five notes resonating through my body. Somewhat like turning into molten gold and flowing gently into the night. Although I understood little of the words of the singer, it didn't matter. Glorious voice, beautifully controlled, sometimes lingering on a whisper, sometimes as if forced painfully from the guts, filled with anguish, but filled with power.
I bought a CD of this trio...
We also went to a small bar Diligencia recommended by Pedro and others, where a slightly more low-key (if one can call it that) Fado was sung. One singer with classical guitar. This place has a warm and inviting atmosphere, it comes highly recommended and was close to our room, and the night was rainy. After a light supper cooked by David in the kitchen of our Residenzia, we emerged clothed in rain capes (first time it's rained for me in Portugal in months!) and soon found the bar. There were four other people there when we arrived. We chatted to the guy who runs the bar and ordered a glass of red wine from the Alentejo (excellent!) and sat down at the empty table between the two couples.
One pair was from Brazil, and I tried my Brazilian Portuguese which was fairly successful. The other couple, more the age of David and me, were from Denmark and Sweden. Both retired teachers, very interesting and well-informed. Then in came a young woman who I heard say she was Italian, so with great delight I went and told her I spoke Italian (one of my favourite-of-all languages, though in fact I love every language even if I only have a smattering.) Then arrived another young woman, long dark hair, might well have been Portuguese but she told us she was from Greece. Better and better, kali something we cry in delight. It was at this point, as the warm rich singing started, that I was filled with a sense of not belonging to any one country but simply of being me: born in Canada, with European ancestry, here I was with a mixture of Europeans from the north and south, from Sweden to Greece, or from Portugal in the west to Turkey in the east (because the Greek student had ancestors from Turkey, she told us). And I know how lucky I am, how privileged to have been placed/born in a free country and never to have been told that I was someone's slave.
The Italian, Rossella, joined us the next day with her Portuguese boyfriend, Jose, and we had more linguistic games (by this time my Italian is becoming contaminated (silly word!) with Spanish and Portuguese, but at least I still know when I say something incorrectly). It dosn't matter with Rossella because she speaks Italian, Spanish and Portuguese as well as English.
Time to stop now; the fires in Portugal were finished by the rain on Monday night. The sun returned and great bubbling white clouds. David and I spent the next couple of days exploring the utterly beautiful old churches and cathedral and climbing up ad down excessively steep staircases, remarking upon how fit all this activity was keeping us.
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