Coimbra

Coimbra is a lovely old university town, Portugal’s Oxford. The old part of town is built on the top of a hill with steep, narrow, winding roads. Students wear black capes, Harry Potter style. It was their Rush week here. They call it Praxe. Freshmen students are led through a series of silly events, with the upper classmen in their cloaks surrounding them and yelling chants. We saw one group wearing pictures of donkeys around their necks; another group was having to randomly number themselves off and if two students spoke at the same time, they had to start over. It is said that J. K. Rowling modeled her idea of Hogwarts after the university here. We toured a museum with well preserved statues and carvings. In the early 100’s bc this area was under Roman rule and the university was built above where a Roman forum was. Below we could see some of those Roman structures. We finished the night with a Fado concert. Fado is a style of Portuguese singing and guitar originally performed by students singing to woo a girl. They use a specific type of guitar. It was really very nice. We weren’t allowed to record but I’m sure you can find some on Google.Lue lisää