Day 9 – Rabacal to Coimbra – 16-May-2018
Four factors came in to play this morning which shaped our day. We were supposed to walk from Rabacal to Coimbra (32kms), which was going to be a long hard day on the trail. The aforementioned four factors were
- The weather was going to be hot (29 degrees)
- The distance long (32kms)
- We wanted to see Coimbra fairly extensively
- Lawrence had had a tumble the day before (nothing serious), but it left him a bit battered and bruised, with a fairly sore left leg, which meant he had trouble doing any sort of walking. Unfortunately he also broke his camera in the same incident – not happy!!!!!
So considering all of these, we (Michael, Jose, Eloisa, Francesca and Lawrence ) decided to take a bus from Rabacal to Coimbra.
This, in hindsight, turned out to be an excellent decision. We got to Coimbra at around 8:30 and searched around for a place to store our backpacks, as our intended albergue would not take us or our gear until 2:00pm.
We dumped our gear in a postal depot and proceeded to commence exploring the historic town of Coimbra. We learned later that Coimbra used to be the capital of Portugal in days gone by, and is still a very prominent city in the Portugal Landscape. It is perhaps best known these days as a university town with one of the oldest universities in Europe, having been established in the 13th century. The university complex is most impressive, perched high up on a hill, with imposing old buildings.
We spent a fair part of the morning looking around the university and then headed down to the old city with the customary churches, municipal offices, wonderful old but vibrant and busy plazas. I’ve visited quite a number of European cities and certainly their old quarter, is by a long way, the most appealing and interesting of the city. Coimbra was no exception.
We had a pleasant lunch, and then proceeded to go up to our albergue (Rainha Santa Isabel), which itself was perched up high on a hill on the other side of river. The lodgings were pleasant enough, especially as we managed to score a room to ourselves.
The rest of the afternoon was spent exploring this lovely city. We were fortunate that Eloisa was meeting up with friends who lived in Coimbra, and they volunteered to drive us and our luggage back to the albergue.
The late afternoon was spent with housekeeping duties. The girls (Eloisa and Francesca) went out with the friends from Coimbra and us boys stayed back in the albergue and relaxed and cooked pizza for dinner.
Yes, taking he morning bus from Rabacal to Coimbra was definitely the right decision.
Tomorrow (Coimbra to Mealhada) is a relatively short day (22.4kms) but also a day of heat, so another early start.