Coimbra; Sunday, 16 February, 2014

Another long lie-in and massive breakfast combo set me up for the day.

I headed out of the hotel and climbed up through the narrow lanes of the old town up to the university district and visited the stunning Museu Nacional de Machado de Castro stopping on its terrace café for lunch looking out over the dome of the old cathedral and the river.

From there it was a wander through the university district and down to the botanical gardens to have a look around them

From the botanical gardens I wandered back via the Praça da República and the overly engineered fountain in the Jardim da Manga to the centre of town for a late afternoon coffee before crossing the bridge to visit the ruins of the Old Santa-Clara monastery.

A long look around the site, made all the more incredible by the video of how they had rescued the site, which had started to be inundated by the river not long after it was built and had to be abandoned by the 17th century, by pumping out all the water. As you wandered round the lower parts of the church the tidelines were way above your head on the pillars.

I crossed back over the river and stopped for dinner in one of the restaurants that overlook the river, which had noticeably dropped from the previous day and was almost back within its banks.

After dinner I had a bit of a wander through the park before heading back to the hotel.