We enjoyed visiting Coimbra with it’s extensive pedestrian streets and picturesque river. It was one of those cities we said we could easily come back to. The 700 year old university was interesting, especially it’s fascinating library.
We visited a small ceramics factory where we could observe the handiwork of women who painted objects free hand. We could each try our own hand at painting tiles which would be fired and delivered to us later in Porto. The results of those varied from quite good to awful.
Near Coimbra is a partially excavated Roman city, Conimbriga, which we toured.
Our group attended a Fado performance by an all male group made up of former and current Coimbra University students. We saw some of the same musicians who we had seen in Lisbon!
On our way to the Douro valley we toured a family owned and run winery. After a delightful lunch there we motored on to the village of Pinhão in the Douro Valley. Other than the scenery, the old train station with elaborate tile murals was the main attraction there.
