About Coimbra

About Coimbra

February 27, 2008 · No Comments

Coimbra is a city in Portugal and home to the University of Coimbra, . It is the seat of the Centro region, as well as of the District of Coimbra and the Baixo Mondego subregion which are both located within it. Like most university cities, it comprises a large number of dislocated students from outside Coimbra among its residents.

Aspect of the Botanical Garden of the University of Coimbra.

Coimbra is one of the most important urban centers of Portugal after the much larger Lisbon Metropolitan and Porto Metropolitan areas, . The city contains important archeological remains of structures dating from the time when it was the Roman town of Aeminium, such as its well-preserved aqueduct and cryptoporticus, as well as from the period when it served as the capital of Portugal (from 1139 to about 1260). In the Late Middle-Ages, declining as the political centre of the Kingdom of Portugal, Coimbra began to evolve into a major cultural centre with the foundation of the University of Coimbra in 1290. The university, one of the oldest in Europe, attracts visitors from around the world due to its monumental buildings and history, making the city an important touristic destination.

Coimbra fado

Cover from Guitarra Portuguesa by Carlos Paredes.

Fado de Coimbra (Coimbra Fado) is a highly stylized genre of fado born in the city of Coimbra. Guitar player Carlos Paredes and singer Zeca Afonso, are among its most renowned and historical figures.

Orfeon Académico de Coimbra, the oldest and most famous academic choir in Portugal, an autonomous organization of the students’ union Associação Académica de Coimbra, established in 1880 by a law student, and the fado section of Associação Académica de Coimbra itself, are important organizations in Coimbra fado promotion and preservation.

According to tradition, to applaud fado in Lisbon you clap your hands, while in Coimbra you cough as if clearing your throat.

Mondego river.

This is not enough to show you Coimbra, so you have to come and visit it.

Porto - North of Portugal

Oporto is the 2nd most important city of Portugal, builded near Douro River in north of Portugal . Porto becames from Portus that mean "a way to get in"in the year of 417 many boats passed there and commercial relations were importants for the city development. For several times Porto have neen destroyed by wars, always rebuilted .


This is the House of Music, built on 2006, here happens some of the most important music shows in Portugal.

Oporto developed his wine culture a long time ago, founding cellars were they steel make and keep wine. You can visit them and taste some oporto wine.



This is a general view of Douro river and a part of city.

There are 7 bridges acrossing this river and conecting Porto with Vili Nova de Gaia.
This is bridge D.Luis I


On this river are the Rabelo boats wich transport the wine barrils to cellars.
To end i invite you to visit this town and taste our wine, than eat "francesinhas", i won´t teel you what is it, you must try. in my next blog i'll tell you some more from portugal...

Serra da Estrela

This are some photos from our highest moutain, Serra da Estrela,
with 1991 meters. This is the only mountain explored for snow tourism, and the place we (portuguese) wait by winter to try some snow pleasures. Peolple from all Portugal visit Serra da Estrela between December and April. In there we find the wonderful butter cheese and others gastronomic delicious.
There is also a special dog tipycal it looks like a wolf, they are very expensive.




This lake we see in pictures is were born one of the most important river of Portugal " Rio Mondego". When you came to Portugal don´t forget, try to visit Serra da Estrela you will find a wonderful place of fresh air and explendorous views.

Saturday, 16 February 2008

this is my favourite day of the week, besides clean and clean my house i love to do it. i have nowone helping me unfortunatly i can´t afford it and i do my house keeping. Following my latest thought, this is another "job" that portuguese women latelly have taken. A few years ago many houses had someone usually african women to do our house keeping and now the most of unemployers (women) do that. They receive aprox. 5 euros/hour but recently women from Ukrania "stoled" many of their jobs, because they ask for less money. This is really dificult, our families are whithout ressources and many of them trying to find a better life outside of Portugal.

Hi all, here i am in my first adventure writing a blog. I heard from a neighbour and i tryed. Let´s see what i can do. First of all i´d like to introduce myself, my name is Angela i´m 35 years old, married with Jorge and our son´s name is Daniel and he is 9 years old. We live in Marinha Grande, near Leiria about 170Km from Lisbon capital of Portugal.
I born and studied here in Marinha Grande, than i got married with 21 Years and continue living and working in the same town. I worked in the mould industry and now i have my own business ( Marigoma) - It´s a small laundry. We will talk about this later because it´s my first topic i´d like to discuss. Here in Portugal we´re having serious problems with unemployment, women are the principal victims because with 35 or 40 years old nowone "want their services", too old for the job is the answer heard by the most women looking for work. I´d like to know what you think about this and what is going on your countries?? thank you for spending your time reading this.