At Coimbra

We arrived at Coimbra yesterday. This was the medeival capital of Portugal and until the 20th cetury, Portugal's only University city.
Its relevance to the trail of Clarissa and her father,Nicolas Trant is that following the French occupation of the city in 1810 it was liberated by a Portugese force under Nicolas Trant.  His victory may have been eased by the limited French garrison as most of the troops in the city were casualties.
Trant raised a volunteer army of Portugese students and seized the city from the French occupying forces.
Cathy has Clarissa's diary which records the welcome gjven to the liberating forces and the subsequent grand reception.
Cathy was given a very helpful reception by the University archive and library who together unearthed a thesis with some relevent material, including pictures of the presumed location of the [19C] reception.
The city itself has a picuresque (if in some parts dilapidated and rather neglected) centre. It is on a hill and tbe streets are often steep. Portugese roads and pavements tend to be formed of two inch granite or limestone mosaics (sometimes witb patterns but often plain) making the steep inclines just a bit harder for the over 60's to traverse.
Happily there is a special (electric)  bus and a lift to make ascending from our hotel to the University easier.
As the University is built around the old Royal court buildings, one might expect some interesting buildings. However Royal patrons seem to have gone to extra special lengths to leave traces of themselves to subsequent generations by creating Baroque extraviganza in the form of a library, Chapel and various halls that are fascinating if rather ovedone to the extent that a new fairly utilitarian set of modern buildings now provides some of the current academic facilities. However as we found on taking the combined ticket to visit of the parts of the University open to visitors, lectures take place inside a kind of Roccoco palace, with lecture theaters (19 century ambiance) leading off a two story cloister adorned with decorative tiles that would not seem out of place in an palace (which indeed it was prior to the sixteenth century.
The original library is is a fantastic structure but wholly unusable as a library, with elaborate gilded decoration and laquered columns supporting shelves of books chosen for their orate spines.
As in Oporto, there seem to be a relatively large number of sixteenth and seventeenth century buildings many of which now house university faculties. Some however seem semi derilect. In tbe city many of the older and more ordinary buildings seem to be abandoned. However some are occupied by student communes or "self styled Republics". Student graffiti appear on many of the walls even  on tbe major buildings.
This all in a city with many churches and a Cathedral with an ornate 15 century alterpiece.