Coimbra's university is one of the oldest in Europe, founded in 1290 in Lisbon and finally settled in Coimbra in 1537, when King João III installed it in the old royal palace on the hill. The Alta, the upper town, grew around it, and the whole hill, along with Rua da Sofia below, is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Students still walk the lanes in black capes, and the city is built around them in a way few other towns in Europe still are.
The jewel of the complex is the Joanina Library, a Baroque hall of the early eighteenth century with gilded bookcases, painted ceilings and some sixty thousand old volumes. At night, they say, a colony of bats lives behind the shelves and eats the insects that would otherwise eat the books, and the librarians cover the tables with leather to protect them from droppings. Nearby, the bell tower, nicknamed the goat, once marked the students' hours, and the Via Latina, the courtyard, is where freshmen and graduates gather. The campus is open to visitors, with fixed ticket times, so it pays to book.
Riding into the Alta is a feat of nerve. The road climbs from the Mondego river up narrow, steep and cobbled streets, with sharp bends, tight junctions and a fair few pedestrians who assume you will stop. Parking is limited and some streets are restricted, so most riders leave the bike in a lot near the river and walk up the stairs. Wet cobbles in winter are slick, and in summer the stone holds heat long after sunset.
Fuel is no problem, because Coimbra is a city of more than a hundred thousand, with stations on the ring roads and the highway. Food is local and filling: leitão assado, roast suckling pig from the nearby Bairrada region, and chanfana, goat slow-cooked in red wine. The city also has its own style of fado, sung by men in student capes, quieter and more formal than the Lisbon kind, usually heard in small venues at night.
The best moment is early evening, when the sun lights the old stone and the students spill out of the lecture halls.