Tag Archives: Portugal

Days 16 & 17 – To Águeda then Albergaria-a-Velha

Leave a Reply

Sunday 13 September 2026 – As hinted in the last entry, today, being not a walking day (28km in temperatures of 35°C? What could possibly go wrong?) involved a late breakfast and then whistling up another Uber. The breakfast at Vinyl M was delivered on a tray but was remarkably good – yoghurt, bread rolls, cheese, ham, croissants and a creditable flat white coffee. Our Uber arrived a few minutes late, but delivered us swiftly to our next accommodation, the Hotel Conde d’Águeda, where the lovely Beatrice on reception not only had a room ready for us but also spent a decent amount of time talking about the various sights we could see around the town. Brierley hardly gives Águeda an entire sentence, but we were actually really looking forward to walking round to see the various bits of street art that Jane’s researches had told us were to be found. We had a cup of tea, first, of course, which enabled us to plan our next moves in the light (and heat) of the heat wave which was due to last a couple of days more. The A/B decision was: (A) walk around in 35-degree heat to see the artworks we knew about now, then get an early night to start walking at 0600 the next day; or (B) sod that for a game of soldiers, rest up for the day, see the artworks in cool of the next morning and get another Uber. Jane’s plan was A; mine, unsurprisingly, was B. Reader, I won the day! We decided that seeing the art in comfort was better than walking the 16km to Albergaria. That said, we went for a walk anyway. Obviously.

Our hotel was handily placed to walk to much of what was worth seeing, so we waited a bit to allow the day to cool a bit and then set out. It wasn’t difficult to see where we could start – there are colourful artworks all over the place,

but one of the main things to marvel at was the Umbrella Sky Project.

Águeda’s roots go back to Celtic/Lusitanian settlement, with the area occupied since at least the 4th century BC. It shows up in documents from 1050–1077 under names like Casal Lousado, Anegia, Agatha and Ágada, and by the 9th century was known as Ágata. Through the Middle Ages it belonged to the monasteries of Lorvão and Vacariça rather than having its own royal charter, and functioned as a stop on the road to Santiago de Compostela. It became a municipal seat in 1834 after Portugal’s Liberal Revolution, and was only granted city status in 1985. Historically it made its name in metalworking, bicycles, and ceramics – hence it has the nickname “Portuguese Bicycle Capital”.

The transformation to being a “street art town” is very recent and very deliberate. The Umbrella Sky Project was born in Águeda in 2012, created by the design firm Impactplan working with the local council on what started as a small installation on one narrow street. It was inspired by the image of Mary Poppins floating down with her umbrella, and it was part of the AgitÁgueda festival, which used it to add colour and shade during the hot summer months. Photos went viral, and, as we were to see for ourselves, the town leaned into it hard;  it’s now spawned licensed versions in cities from Lisbon to Pensacola, Florida. That festival became the, erm, umbrella for a much wider street-art push, including a strand called Rexenera aimed at getting big murals and sculptures into public squares.

So, worth spending extra time to appreciate, then.

There are colourful embellishments everywhere you look around the town centre,

and the Umbrella Sky presence covers several streets.

The Umbrella idea has been mercilessly exploited, time and time again

and the “Sky” aspect has also mutated in places, as we discovered when we walked further afield the following morning (see later).

As we walked around, the Disneyland-esque feel of the place almost made me feel as if we’d been transported to somewhere in the USA. It’s quite the riot of colour (which, sadly, somewhat disguises the areas of neglect which are quite common in Portugal). It gives an agreeable air to walking around and, say, stopping for a beer and pizza. So we did. I think we must have got our timing a bit wrong; as we took seats outside the Sant’Oregano pizzeria we were almost the only customers and it took an unconscionable amount of time to produce our pizzas – over 40 minutes. By the time we’d finished them, the pizza place – and the street it was on – was quite lively, with a Saturday night buzz, so I think we might have been a bit early. The pizzas were good and the beer was welcome, but the quantities were excessive. So, after we’d eaten, we decided we should go for a walk. Obviously. We headed down to the river and walked along it to see a work by a particular artist, and it was lovely to see it; but the light wasn’t at its best, so we resolved to include it in our walkabout the next morning.

When we got back to the hotel we noticed that the ground floor bar was labelled an “honesty bar”; and I’d thought I’d seen some gin on the counter when we’d checked in. I had not been wrong;

there was indeed an excellent selection of gins, but we couldn’t find the necessary ice and tonic to make any of them into a decent drink. We asked at reception and the nice lass there went off and came back with ice and tonic, so the situation was saved. She also offered to put the charge for the drinks on our room bill, which was fine – but it means that the description of “honesty bar” is not very accurate. No matter – it was lovely to have a decent G&T.

So: that was yesterday. Today, we walked further afield in the relative cool of the morning. Breakfast was taken on the top floor of the hotel, whence we got a nice view of the misty morning

and one of the Umbrella Sky streets.

Before we went out, Jane also took this shot of a mural that we could see from our bedroom.

We walked nearly 4km to search out the things we knew about, and there were three particular works that we wanted to see. More of them later, but there was much else to spot. Of course, we wanted to find the various Sky projects, and there were several non-umbrella ones to be seen.

This one has the theme of fishes and the sea,

another is a “garden” in the sky,

and there is a sunflower street, too.

There is artwork all around: some big pieces

some medium-sized ones;

and some small touches.

The cogwheel is essentially Águeda’s symbol of industry. Águeda developed a strong industrial base, particularly in metalworking, machinery, bicycles and related manufacturing, and the town’s heraldry reflects that. The cogwheel appears prominently in the municipal coat of arms, alongside grapes, pine trees and wavy blue lines, which represent the River Águeda.

CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=303386

There are embellishments on and around several buildings, such as the town hall and the arts centre.

There are some more traditional artistic touches around;

the azulejo panel illustrates the historical lifestyle of the nearby Aveiro district coastline, showcasing the iconic bateiras (traditional flat-bottomed boats) and the marshy lagoon landscape. The Águeda municipality, particularly the Fábrica de Faianças do Outeiro de Águeda and master painters like João Breda, has a deeply rooted history in producing monumental, hand-painted blue and white tile panels that celebrate regional Portuguese landmarks and traditions. (I’ve taken the em dashes out of the above so that you won’t know I got it from AI.)

Given the town’s history, it unsurprising to see bicycles represented around, such as these verges on the garden sky street.

There was a substantial bric-a-brac market going on (this being a Sunday) in and among the artworks.

However, the things that really interested us were works by Bordallo II – he of the “art from trash” installations. Águeda boasts no fewer than three: a robin, down by the river;

a salamander, by the town hall;

and, slightly further afield, a kitten.

(You can infer from the solar panels above the kitten that this is lit at night.)

Walking around to see all of these things was an agreeable way of spending the morning. Just before midday, we checked out of the hotel and were Uber-whisked by Jose (listening to religious anthems all the way – well, it is Sunday) to our accommodation in Albergaria-a-Velha. jane spotted a grain store on the way. In Spain, these are called horreos, but in Portugal their name is espigueiros, and they are, I read, found principally in the north-west of the country. This being the direction we’re headed, I would expect us to see more of these as we walk further north – because walk is what we firmly intend to do whenever the weather renders it other than a stupid idea.

Jose dropped us off in a hot, sunny street in Albergaria, and we walked along it to find our accommodation, Estalagem dos Padres – Inn of the Priests. It was, of course, locked and deserted. Fortunately, sitting on the street opposite the entrance was an Australian lass, Georgina, who was in contact with the owners, and, long story short, we got in to what is evidently a remotely-operated establishment. Our keys were in a drawer, our breakfast will be delivered to a drawer in the well-equipped kitchen and there was a kettle, with milk in the fridge. We were able, then, to have a cup of tea and a chat with Georgina, and work out what to do with the rest of the day. Georgina has been hard core and walked all the way from Lisbon; well done to her! She has chatted with a few people along the way and helped a couple, including, she told us, an 86-year old lady from America, who’d been having difficulty finding the way (not surprising, given the lack of signage in Lisbon). I was working on this blog in the lounge area when who should turn up but the American lady, Louise from Pennysylvania. We chatted a bit before she went off to her room, and then it was time for Jane and me to go out and find somewhere to eat.

Albergaria is obviously a place of great pith and moment, since it has a couple of bars that are actually open on a Sunday, and, mirabile dictu, a restaurant, Memórias, that was open all day. We had a good, copious, meal there and tottered back to the Estalagem for the rest of the day.

Tomorrow, our target is Oliveira de Azeméis, which is about 20km away (and at the top of a hill; sigh), so if we get on with it and don’t hang about we should be able to walk there and arrive before the worst of the day’s heat. An early start beckons!

 

 

Day 15 – Coimbra to Pedrulha: another decent day’s walking

2 Replies

Friday 11 September 2026 – Our breakfast was Room Service, in the sense that Jane constructed a banana sandwich each for us from our foragings, and our travel kettle once again came in handy. This enabled another early start as we once again wanted to avoid the worst heat of the day. As we handed our bags over to be collected and transported later, the receptionist tried to persuade us to stay for the hotel breakfast which started at 7am, but we were more anxious to get on the road.

The road in question led us to the local equivalent of Spaghetti Junction, where we had to figure out how to carve a footpath through a major road intersection and significant roadworks,

but fortunately the traffic was light and so the couple of unofficial scamperings across major roads didn’t cause any accidents; and then we walked along what seemed like a recently created joint pavement and cycle path for a while as the sun came up.

Quite soon thereafter, we turned off on to a more minor road, and as we exited the sprawl of Coimbra, the landscape turned towards rural exploitation.

We had a Mystery Object Game along this stretch of road. It had no pavement and so we were walking in the margin, marked by a white line. I noticed that every so often there was a bolt in the road.

I made some humorous (no, really) comment about being glad that the road builders had bolted the surface down for us, but then we saw that these bolts happened regularly. The mystery deepened slightly when we came across one of these.

Black, hard rubber or plastic – we weren’t sure what they were for. Then, after a couple of hundred metres, we found out what was going on.

I suppose the idea was that the posts should give motorists a clue about where the edge of the road was, and equally it appeared that, over the years, many motorists had been slow to take the hint. Anyway, traffic was light and we didn’t have to take evasive action as we were walking along.

As yesterday, there was a fair bit of mist around which took a while to burn off

and it was pleasant to be walking in the cool. When we’re on these Camino gigs, Jane and I operate a “minimum qualifying distance” when it comes to coffee stops: 5km. So, I was delighted that at 5.05km into the walk, we passed a place that Google insisted was called Bogani Café, but was actually called Kontra a’dor Kafé. This is a pun on the Portuguese for something like “coffee against the pain”.

where a very cheerful chap served us a meia de leite and pastel de nata each. I was amused (in an ignorant Brit tourist way) by his sugar sachets

which still had the Bogani branding and seemed to advertise desperate music. (Actually, this was part of a set, which all carried cheerful slogans: Café Bogani awakens the senses, or friendship or, in this case, music.) The owner wished us well and we went on our way.

Another mystery presented itself by the roadside.

At first it just seemed that the post carrying the cables had simply keeled over. But, looking closer

we could see that it had actually been cut down – very odd!

We passed a field of grazing sheep. Unusually, instead of there being just one bellwether wearing a bell, they all seemed have bells, and the overall effect was quite lovely.

The road took us through the village of Fornos, which has an attractive azulejo on its outskirts

depicting Coimbra and featuring its brand of Fado music. Like other villages we’d seen, Fornos appeared to be preparing for (or perhaps recovering from?) a fiesta,

quite seriously.

(For those who haven’t come across it before, Sagres is a brand of beer named for the Portuguese town which sits at the southwestern tip of mainland Europe.)  A poster showed the scale of the celebrations, so we were right in the middle of the events.

Fornos appears to be a cheery place, with gardens featuring Belladonna Lilies

and erm, a Danceteria….

The outskirts merged seamlessly into the next village, Trouxemil, where there was an attractive church of Santiago

with a statue of the saint outside

and a neatly decorated church bell.

Just outside the church, an enterprising lady had taken over one of the town benches and was using it as a shop counter.

We’d done nearly 10km by this stage, and there was the possibility of another coffee stop nearby; however, we decided to go for the one at the far end of the village, the Café Central, because that would definitely be over the 10km mark, and Google said it was open.

Sadly, Google was wrong. Maybe the owner had been fiesta-ing too hard. Whatever, we didn’t want to go back, so we pressed on. The next village, again, merging with Trouxemil, was called Sargento Mor, which I hope doesn’t mean “Sergeant Death”.

It had a café that swore it was popular;

not, however, popular enough to be actually open. We did find one establishment where we could take coffee and a short rest. It was a kind of general-purpose outlet – café, pastelaria and general store, so we could take coffee and a pastry.

The road took us past some railings which were being used by aestivating snails who clearly couldn’t find any long grass, and then we headed out into the countryside for a trek along a track. As we were drinking our coffee, we’d noted a handful of peregrinos walking by, one of whom was this oriental lady who was wafting along quite gently,

and we also encountered a couple of the girls who had overnighted at Quinta de Cortiça a few days ago, so they were obviously making about the same progress as we were. The track was a bit trying, to be honest, as it was quite sandy in places, which made it a little slippery underfoot; but we eventually emerged and got back onto tarmac just outside Vimieira, where there were signs that the fiesta was being observed here, too.

Vimieira had its share of pleasant houses, as well as some that were a bit more ramshackle.

As we found in the earlier part of our walk, villages closely bordered each other

so we were then in Casal Comba, whence we caught sight of our final destination, Pedrulha.

(The Caminho goes through Mealhada, to which Pedrulha is a neighbour, and our original plan had been to stay in a hotel in Mealhada actually on the Caminho; but a family emergency at that hotel had enforced a change of plan, so we had left the Caminho in Vimieira and will rejoin it tomorrow. Except we won’t. See later.)

Our accommodation for the night was the “Vinyl M Hotel”, and, rather like Casa das Raposas, was something of an unknown quantity. It appeared to be not quite in the middle of nowhere but not anywhere reassuring, like near shops or restaurants. It could, for example, provide snacks rather than having a restaurant. I had visions of a sort of motel-type place, and we decided that we should try for something to eat before we got there, in case getting food would be difficult later. Pedrulha appeared to offer a café called RSB, which we set as a target. We got to the village square past a nicely-decorated house,

and there was a café immediately on our left,

so we looked in.

The photo makes it look better than it seemed IRL, but they had coffee and beer and pastries, so we used sign language to negotiate a couple of savoury pastries and coffee and beer – not as substantial as we’d envisaged, but better than nothing – and settled down outside for a perfectly pleasant lunch and a bit of a rest. Jane spotted that the village’s pillory had been fiesta-ised

and the keen of vision will spot a café in the background of that photo. Whether our place was this RSB or that other place was, we’ll never know; but after half an hour or so (and an extra beer for me) we walked the final 20 minutes, past one place which was the result of several courageous architectural decisions,

to see what awaited us at this Vinyl M place.

It looked motellish enough as we approached past a barrier

and I heard a voice calling out “boa tarde” behind me (“good afternoon” in Portuguese). When I didn’t react (well, it might have been for someone else), the voice said “boa tarde” again, but somehow in a slightly more emphatic way, so we looked around and saw a tiny hatch by the barrier with behind it as much of a face as it could reveal. That was Reception. As Jane was doing the formalities, I noticed the price list on the wall behind me

and was puzzled by the difference between minimum and maximum prices – a factor of 4! Anyway, the lady behind reception checked us in and led us across the yard to our room, in which our bags had already safely been stowed.

My fears about it being a tacky motelly place evaporated – it was a vast room, with an even bigger bathroom. But the decor! Their schtick (unsurprisingly given the “vinyl” monicker) is rooms themed around jazz, rock, tango and samba music. Breakfast could be delivered at whatever time we wanted – even at 5am! – and checkout wasn’t until midday.

When we’d mentioned to Jessica, back in Coimbra, that we were going through Mealhada she told us with delight that it was “suckling pig central” and that we should make an effort to try some. At the time, thinking as I did that Vinyl M was out in the boondocks, I didn’t rate our chances. However, it turns out that next door to Vinyl M was a place called Burguezia do Leitão, a combined hotel, lounge bar and restaurant – and leitão means, you guessed it, suckling pig, which gave us something of a clue as to what we might find on the menu. So, after the mandatory settling-in cup of tea and a quick look through the reams of content generated from yesterday in Coimbra, we headed out there to sample their wares. It took a certain amount of sign language and patience but we ended up with their signature leitão sandwiches and G&Ts and all was well with the world.

There being nothing else worth leaving the hotel for, this left the evening free for writing up the fantastic but full-on day we’d had yesterday in Coimbra on the blog.

We were on the verge of yet another heat wave in the area, with temperatures in the upper 30s C for the next three days; the distance to our next accommodation in Águeda was somewhere around 28-30km – probably 8 hours’ walking. So even if we set out at 6am, we’d still be walking at 2pm in the peak temperature of the day, 37C.

Not. A. Chance.

I booked an Uber for midday the next day so we could have the morning at leisure (pace having to get the bags to reception by 0800) and travel in comfort to Águeda, which looks like a very interesting city that deserves time to look around and appreciate. So Jane and I have to work out a plan which gets us a decent look around Águeda and gets us beyond it, to Albergaria, without having to spend too much time in termperatures well over 30°C. I wonder if Uber will get more of our business?

 

 

 

 

Day 14 – from Condeixa to Coimbra: a full-on day

Leave a Reply

Thursday 10 September 2026 – Long Post Alert!!!

Our destination today was the University city of Coimbra, some 20km away – about 5 hours’ walk. As before, we decided to leave very early so that we would mostly be walking before the worst heat of the day. As before, we got out of the hotel at around 0625 when, as before, they turned the streets lights off with a click at 0630, which meant photographing this statue gave rise to a less than satisfactory result.

Before we left for Portugal, I (as so many others) had been re-reading The Odyssey by Homer, with its frankly tedious repetitions about rosy fingered dawn. But you kind of get the idea when you see it for yourself.

We walked along the road out of Condeixa, past this house with its neat kitchen garden,

this impressively-tiled shrine,

and a goat

before reaching the outskirts of the small town of Cernache, where we passed a very engaging alojamento catering for pilgrims on their way either to Fatima or Santiago – Casa Amazonia. We first noticed the ducks  and geese

and then the place itself, which is remarkably architected.

One assumes it’s run by person or persons from South America, probably Brazil. Uniquely decorated, it was.

As we headed into the village, it seemed that the trail was going in every direction except the one we needed it to, which is, of course, northwards. At one stage we were squinting into the rising sun; at others it was behind us

and providing views across a countryside over which the sun had yet to burn away the overnight mist.

Walking into Cernache, we passed several instances where the scale of things seemed to have got out of kilter: a picnic table set up that would seat an entire banquet;

and a row of houses with enormously tall and thin doors.

We got to the town’s main drag

with a plan that said we would get coffee at a bar at the far end of the street. As we walked along, we saw a few people in yellow hi-vis tabards and Jane thought she saw the word “Fatima” written on the back of them. There were a couple outside our coffee stop

but that, it turns out, was because there wasn’t room inside for them because of all the other buggers in yellow hi-vis.

Bloody pilgrims, eh?

In the face of this queue we backtracked through the town to where I thought we’d seen another place open, and had coffee there, though their selection of pastry was limited. Even after we got going again, the town was still crawling with yellow hi-vis;

how they’re going to get on as a pilgrimage group that large is anybody’s guess, but good luck to them. I suppose.

After the town, our track went off the road

and on to a forestry track, which we followed for quite some distance. We passed a mystery object

which (if Google Lens is to be believed) is an air release valve, part of a water supply system that allows air that has built up in water pipes to be released to avoid blockage (just like bleeding a radiator). One area was lined with notices

announcing an area reserved for the training of hunting dogs. Apparently (according to ChatGPt, anyway) hunting is likely for anything from songbirds through wild rabbits to boar and deer, though I can’t see dogs being much help for hunting songbirds.

We followed an undulating path, occasionally rough underfoot,

and, as we got high in the hills, passed a lonely goatherd.

As we walked along, we could hear an unearthly grinding and squealing, which got louder and louder; but we could see no machinery that might be making such a noise. Eventually we sussed the source;

the anemometers on top of the pylon. I’ve never come across this before.

Emerging from the track onto the road, we had one of those inevitable Caminho-type route characteristics; if there’s a choice of route, the Caminho always goes uphill.

We toiled up the hill – one of several non-trivial and rather unexpected uphill pulls on the day – to get a nice view in the general direction of, but not including, Coim9bra’s centre.

We had been quite high up and therefore now had to go down again (under, not on, the motorway, I’m glad to say) and we saw that there had once been an aqueduct, the Macomboa Aqueduct.

It seemed to me to be a commentary on modern life that The Powers That Be had prioritised the flow of traffic over the flow of water, but actually it never worked because of design errors, and was anyway partially destroyed by Napoleon’s troops, so cutting a road through it didn’t cause any ructions.  We walked close enough to get quite a good look at it.

before heading into the area called Santa Clara, where, after another couple of kilometres, we got our first clear view of the centre of Coimbra.

On our route down into Coimbra centre, we passed one of the City’s significant buildings that we particularly wanted to explore, the Mosteiro de Santa Clara-a-Nova, the new monastery of Santa Clara (to which the ill-fated aqueduct had originally been intended to supply water).

The old monastery had been founded in the early 14th century near the river Mondego by Queen Isabel of Portugal, wife of King Dinis I. The queen was greatly admired during and after her life for her pious and generous nature, and was canonised in the 17th century. Queen/Saint Isabel was a great admirer of Santa Clara (who was inspired by St. Francis of Assisi and who founded the “Poor Clares”, a mendicant order of nuns who lived in extreme poverty and almost complete isolation), and hence dedicated the monastery to Santa Clara. Unfortunately the monastery was prone to flooding, being too near the river; a new monastery was built in the 17th and 18th Century to replace the old one, and all the nuns as well as the Gothic tombs of Queen Elizabeth and other royal princesses were transferred to the new monastery, therefore called “Santa Clara-a-Nova”.

All this history was vouchsafed to us by a nice young man who gave us a short, erm, briefing about the place once we’d bought tickets. Inside, the place is very impressive, albeit not well lit.

At the altar end is a statue of Santa Clara and the silver tomb constructed for Queen Isabel.

The silver tomb contains her “uncorrupted” body, transferred from her original stone tomb, which is also housed in the building.

Along the side of the tomb we see above are representations of kings and queens; on the other, of Poor Clares. There’s a reliquary containing various pieces, including a pendant

which contains a hair from the Queen.

The monastery also has a very fine cloister.

Moving on from the new monastery towards the city centre, we passed the ruins of the old one.

Ironically, the crane you can see apparently poking out of its roof is actually on the site of the new monastery.

To get to the city centre, one crosses the river Mondego, and this gives a very fine view of the university hill.

We would get to the university later in the day, but first we had to get to our hotel, via a few Things To See.

We passed many handsome buildings as we headed for our hotel,

a couple of significant murals,

and the church of Santiago,

which, despite its imposing façade, is very plain inside.

Another very imposing building is the Santa Cruz monastery.

inside which is some very impressive tiling

and an even more impressive organ. No sniggering at the back there!

In the main chapel at the far end

lie the tombs of the first two kings of Portugal. One can get close to them by paying €5 and entering via the Sacristy, which now does service as an art gallery.

Out the back is another very fine cloister.

whose walls feature some lovely tiling.

Having spent time in these fine buildings, we hied ourselves to our hotel in time for the Assignation I mentioned in my previous entry. This was with a lady, Jessica, with whom I worked in my days as a Tech PR flack, and who has now moved to live in Portugal. It was lovely to meet her again and catch up, and also to be the beneficiaries of her special powers: she knows where to buy Twinings finest Earl Grey tea, something that has been beyond us ever since we arrived in Portugal. The lovely lady brought many, many teabags with her, possibly even enough to see us out for the rest of our time in the Iberian peninsula. A wonderful side-effect of a very pleasant re-encounter.

Jessica sadly had to leave us after only an hour or so, but our time in Coimbra was not done, oh dear me no. We still had to go and explore the University, which has a significant history.

Coimbra is one of Portugal’s oldest cities. It was an important Roman settlement (Aeminium), later became a Moorish stronghold, and after the Christian Reconquest in 1064 grew into a major medieval city – it even served as Portugal’s capital in the 12th–13th centuries.
Its university was founded in 1290 as the Estudo Geral (“General Study”), by royal charter of King Dinis – initially based in Lisbon, not Coimbra. Over the next two centuries it shuttled back and forth between the two cities four times (the name stayed the same throughout; only its location changed) before finally settling permanently in Coimbra in 1537, based in the old royal palace on the hill above the city. It became the country’s only university for centuries and a center of Portuguese intellectual and legal life, with a distinctive academic culture (black capes, fado de Coimbra, and its own traditions separate from Lisbon’s). The historic campus and library (the ornate Joanina Library) were named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013.

Operative words in that description are “hill” and “above”, so we steeled ourselves for something of a climb. And, I have to say, it’s a bugger. You toil a way up a steep street, and then have to climb 114 really very chunky steps. Then, oh goodness me, a little more walking up a steep street and

another 77 of the bloody things. We had to get to the top of these by 6pm, as this was our timed entry into the hallowed halls of The Library, which is the only part of the university which imposes this restriction. We waited a few minutes outside, and then were allowed inside to… wait a little more. The rooms we waited in were part of the University Prison – at one time it ran its own judiciary. Then we were let into the Intermediate Floor which features – surprise! – a lot of books.

The final stage of this rather po-faced exercise was to let us in – ten minutes only! – to the Noble Floor, with a strict verboten on taking photos or video. Absolutely not, you inderstand?

It’s very opulently appointed (although badly lit, hence the poor quality of the photos above) and I suppose is quite impressive, although I couldn’t, obvs, spend time with carefully composed shots to show you. The stricture on taking photos really annoyed me, as I could see no good reason for it – our time slot was for only a small group so it’s not as if there would be a forest of selfie sticks and mobile phones. That’s why I thought “sod ’em” and took a couple of illicit shots – and I was not the only one doing this, by the way.

Apparently bats live in some hidden nook or other on this floor and are welcome, as they control insects which would otherwise damage the books. Before the bats come out at night, cloth has to be laid on all the tables for their protection. The tables, not the bats.

One exits from the Library visit on to the main square.

and thence you can visit other parts of the University, if you have bought entry tickets, which, of course, Jane had ensured we had with us. The first room we visited was St. Michael’s Chapel, which one enters by knocking on the door and waiting to be let in. But it’s worth it.

There’s another stupendous organ (hush, now!) and a remarkable Eucharistic Throne.

It’s also possible to step inside the Royal Palace to see rooms such as the Armoury

and the Great Hall of Acts

which used to be the throne room of the Royal Palace and is now the scene for a variety of high academic processes. Its ceiling, like so many we’ve seen today, is astonishing.

The route back down from the Royal Palace to the main square takes one past a handy view of the city’s fortress cathedral

which time didn’t permit us to see inside; but we reackon we’d given the major buildings of the city centre a pretty good showing, so hightailed it back to the hotel…

… in time to go straight to bed, because we needed to make another early start the next day to, once again, beat the heat. But I’ve taken up quite enough of your time for the moment, so I’ll tell you all about the next leg of our Caminho some other time.