Arrived
in our last stop in Portugal, the university city of Coimbra. Since the year
1290, Coimbra has been home to It's university. We. We're just here for the day
and as it turned out, not even that long.
We headed toward Coimbra taking some toll roads. Nothing we hadn't been doing
all along, but in places in Portugal they have an automated system that reads
your license plate and compares it to a computerized list of those who have
pre-purchased their tolls on these roads. In the south we figured out how to
use it and things worked fine. Suddenly, here in the north, we came upon the
system again but could find no one who could help us pay for our tolls. No one
even knew much about this new system. No
one could take our €.50 (note that's .50) in tolls
and we couldn't prepay for the short amount of time we'd be on the toll road before leaving Portugal without our paying €50 (that's €50) that was non-refundable. So
it remains to be seen what or how this will come back to haunt us in the
future. But rest assured it will.
In the
meantime, we got checked into our Pousada outside Coimbra. Lovely hotel but
not nearly the stunning setting as Sagres down south. Oh well, we'll muddle
through.
Getting
lost in Coimbra was easy. Getting unlost became a bit of a point of contention
or us but we finally found the old city and a parking place. It was late enough
that our choices for lunch had luckily diminished. We intended to try one of two
places on our map but couldn't find them. It was almost closing time for those
two cafes, so rather than continue trying to find them we decided on a third
choice which was, by now, closer and had no closing time. Lucky us!
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| Goat stew and Pollo stew with blood in Coimbra |
Adega
Paco do Conde is popular with local students and families alike. You select the
item, fish or meat, from the case at the front counter and they grill it for you. But
we had heard that one of the local specialties here was goat stew and I was
determined to try it. The owner came out and greeted us, chatting us up for 10
minutes about where we were from, life and the high cost the Euro has taken on
the lives of the Portuguese. He suggested we also try the arroz con pollo with
blood. Hmmmm. Okay. The two bowls arrived and the smell was heavenly. My goat
stew was very salty but the accompanying plate of cooked cabbage, carrots and
potatoes cut the saltiness. The meat was absolutely perfect! I'd never tasted
anything with such a richly flavored broth. It must have been simmering for hours.
As for
the arroz con pollo with blood? Well, it might sound dreadful to you, but
it too was just heavenly. Absolutely amazing! The local red wine and beer were
great accompaniments along with the local baked bread we used to sop up the
juices.
Leslie
headed off to explore further into Coimbra while I remained in the quiet,
sunlit Praca do Comercio, or Commercial Square, catching up on my journal and a
fair bit of people watching.
After our
heavy lunch we had no further plan beyond getting back to our beautiful Pousada
for a final, quiet evening in Portugal.
Next day--our time
in Portugal has sadly come to an end. We must head to Salamanca, Spain today
and despite the fact that Coimbra never clicked with me, this wonderful,
beautiful, passionate country certainly has.
We headed
east toward the border on more of those electronic toll roads, stopping several
times to try and pay our fees but to no avail. We are sure this will catch up
to us yet, but there is little we can do.
****A footnote to this issue. As of this posting some several weeks after our arrival back home, we have received nothing regarding our failure to pay the tolls. So we are quietly crossing our fingers and hoping the issue is settled.
So across the border we went and after
some initial difficulty finding our way around Salamanca, we eventually found
our hotel nestled directly across the street from the cathedral. We even have a
lovely large terrace space with a table and chairs that look out to the dome
and flying buttresses of the cathedral. Fabulous view!
We headed
out across the old city which is largely made up of shopping streets surrounded
by university buildings. It looks a little Harry Potterish to us. Clean,
largely free of the graffiti seen in most other places we've been, it is just a
jewel of a city. We love it!
We walked
all around the key parts looking in a few shops and for a dinner place but
nothing opened for dinner until 8:30.
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| Our terrace in Salamanca |
We found
a shop that sold lovely looking pastries and meat pies and bought some for
dinner. A way further along we found a place we liked where we stopped in for a
glass of wine and with it we each got a free tapa.
Back to
the hotel to sit out on our terrace and munch on our dinner goodies washed down
with a glass of port out of a bottle we'd purchased in Portugal.
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| Salamanca cathedral |
It had
been raining pretty hard at times when we arrived but had settled down to just
drop or two making a sunset dinner on the terrace possible. Still it was cold and with the sun going down it
started getting even colder. Only 8 degrees Celsius when we arrived, it must
have got down lower in the night.
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| Night view of the Salamanca Plaza Major |
We slept
in probably the most comfortable beds of the entire trip which was a welcome
change as tomorrow is another big day of travel and sites.
This style of cold soup
originated in the city of Córdoba in the south of Spain. When preparing this dish, you'll want to use two kinds of olive oil: A lightly
flavored oil is pureed into the soup, but a stronger, fruitier Spanish oil gets
drizzled over just before serving, for a flavorful accent.
