We’re not in Kansas any more: we’re in Coimbra

We were somewhat reticent to leave our beautiful, welcoming accommodation near Tomar, and also realised that we hadn’t actually had a look around Tomar itself, having been completely overwhelmed by the castle and convent on the hill the day before. We were due to head for Coimbra for a couple of days, so we thought we could spare a little time before heading off, and maybe grab a bite to eat while we were at it.
 
We set the GPS, but realised we had the small matter of turning around to do first. We were on a narrow road, with a ditch lining either edge, and hedgerows on both sides. The previous evening this had been no problem, as there was a small driveway into which I had reversed, executing a rather successful three-point turn. This time, however, there was a car blocking the access point, which would have made this a risky and rather time-consuming affair. So, I decided to head off down the narrow road in the opposite direction, confident I would find another driveway or wider part of the road that would enable me to turn round. There was neither. In fact, the road became narrower and narrower, and I found myself at a dead end. I should have realised it wasn’t a proper point of access, as for the past 100m or so I had had barely enough space to advance. The road was barred by a rusting monstrosity of a fence and seemed to terminate behind it. To my right, there was a field; this field was muddy, rutted, and unnavigable. To my left, this fence. Then, I saw, to my relief and delight, that a man was walking down the path behind the fence, coming inexorably towards me, a large, panting dog at his heels. He reached the gate, opened it, and then closed it again. I wound down my window to attempt my usual opening gambit of “Fala inglés?”. But, before the window had even got half-way down, he had marched past me, and was on his way over the ditch into another field. I almost thought I heard him muttering something that sounded like “malditos turistas estúpidos”, but could have been mistaken. He might just have been singing.
 
There was nothing for it. I’d have to reverse back to the refuge and out onto the road behind it. Confident after my glorious success at navigating Marvão a couple of days previously, I put the car into gear and promptly shot forward. I had, of course, forgotten I was driving a standard (a KIA at that), and had not engaged the gears properly. Mrs. Ottawacker was not impressed, and for a brief moment there was a frank exchange of opinions between us. Admittedly, reversing has never been my strongpoint; and I am also a rather poor parallel parker. But, as I pointed out, one of us had refused to drive in Portugal (despite said person having learned on a standard gear shift), so that person was in no position to criticise when the other person (who had picked it up as he had gone along) was reduced to fleeting moments of ineptitude when faced with a road the size of a birthing canal that had a two-foot ditch on either side and with two people telling him he was in danger of crashing every time the vehicle moved. Honestly, it’s enough to drive you to drink.
 
Two minutes later, we had all calmed down and Mrs. Ottawacker was walking behind me leading the way, like a funeral director paging in front of a hearse, but in reverse, if you see what I mean. It was about the same speed as a hearse too. We made it back to the refuge safely enough and found that Luis was talking to the owner of the car blocking the drive. He smiled and waved and told us to wait a second while his friend moved the car.
 
“You should have asked,” he said. “You don’t want to bump into Carlos down the road, he’s a miserable bastard.”
 
We turned, waved farewell, and headed off into Tomar.
 
The GPS, which the previous day had taken us across a field to find this place, today decided to let us use main roads, and within 10 minutes we were driving along the banks of a rather picturesque river (the Nabão) and on the look-out for the Igreja de Santa Maria dos Olivais, which had been described in the rather appalling guide book we had chosen as the church of the Knights Templar. Having seen what the Templars were capable of the day before, we figured we’d give it a go, and then wander into the town for a bite to eat. We found the church relatively easily. It was interesting enough, with a separate bell tower (which I learned had been used as a watchtower from the 13th century, but rebuilt in the 16th century) and a number of small chapels around the sides. This had been the church built by Gualdim Pais. I thought I knew, anecdotally, a little about the Templars, but discovered how little as I read up on them afterwards. If you are interested, there is a really good 200-year potted history at this site.
 
Anyway, after wandering around, visiting a public convenience, taking a few photographs, and listening to a man trying in vain to train his dog (a Yorkshire Terrier about 3cm high), we headed into the town to have a quick look around. We parked (again, free of charge) and wandered through the old town to the river. Some of the streets had to be seen to be believed. I loved rua dos Moinhos, with its cobbled streets and overhangs, you had the impression the street hasn’t changed in centuries. Along the river, in a small park, was a Sunday market, towards which almost everybody in Tomar seemed to be heading. So, we went too. It was quite large, comprising small vendors selling everything from port to football boots. We managed to avoid buying anything – more by luck than design. There was a beautiful water wheel in the river. Then we went back to the car and drove to Coimbra. It was only en route that we realised we still hadn’t eaten.
 
We arrived at around 1pm. Coimbra is a big city with chaotic roads. It is a city I’d describe as being, well, “lived in”. The main reason for our visit was to go and see the university library, but we’d done a fair bit of town hopping over the past days and thought we could use the city as a base for 2-3 days. Ottawacker Jr. had been begging to go on a train ride, so we’d booked a return from Coimbra to Porto for the next day. For the rest of the time, we’d planned to relax, see a new place, do some laundry… all the things you neglect to do when you are being accosted by knights templar, for example. We’d booked an apartment in the city, which had had good reviews, and had arranged to meet the owner, a Brazilian called Marcelo, outside at 1.30pm. The place, thanks to the astounding system of one-way streets, all of which appear to intersect on the same hill, was not that difficult to find. Parking, however, promised to be a little more difficult; this was not helped by my admitted inability to parallel park with any degree of confidence; it was also not helped by the fact that our apartment, at Rua António Vasconcelos No. 8, was on a hill that had not so much of a steep incline as a sheer cliff face. Seriously, we went in through the front door and went down a flight of stairs to the basement; the basement was on the second floor of the street below. You could almost see Tomar from it. We unpacked the car and made a promise to not move it from the parking spot we had nabbed on the street. We had been to an Intermarché on the way in, so I had enough beer and wine for the next couple of days. We might feasibly need some food during that time, but we could forage.
 
There was something shocking about Coimbra when you compared it to Tomar. It was dirty and neglected, but it had a certain something, that even now I can’t put my finger on. I liked it. It reminded me a little of cities like Liverpool or Marseille or even Dublin. People lived here, they worked here, they thrived here. It was noisy and loud and, well, as I said, “lived in”. We realised pretty quickly that we would have to break our vow and use the car again, because we had no idea where the train station was. The problem being that Coimbra had two stations—helpfully called Coimbra “A” and Coimbra “B”—but our ticket provided little information about which of the stations had trains travelling to Porto. And this, at 8am the following day. Clearly, we would have to reconnoitre. Clearly, we would have to use the GPS. In the end, as we were driving round the block for the umpteenth time, we gave up on the GPS because, it seemed, it had not been kept abreast of the roadworks in the city. This was surprising, because some of them had obviously been going on since the 19th century. Coimbra “A” was closed to traffic (always helpful for a train station) and Coimbra “B” was, according to the GPS, inaccessible. Yet, clearly, buses were running to Coimbra “B”, at least according to Ottawacker Jr. and his trained, infallible eye, so they had to travel along a road somewhere. We decided to use street signs and direction markers, hoping against hope that they would lead us where we wanted to go.
 
We drove and looked, and drove and looked, and eventually found the station behind a mound of rubble from the ongoing construction. There was limited parking (unless you parked on the rubble), so Mrs. Ottawacker and Ottawacker Jr. got out and went into the station to see if trains to Porto ran from there. I circled round and round, angling for a spot. In the end, they came out with the news that the train did go from there. So, we headed for home (which was via a more direct route if you followed your nose and not the GPS) and were lucky enough to find the same parking space we had recently vacated. We were lucky; it was the last open space we saw during our stay. Back home, we decided we would walk to the station the following morning, rather than chancing our arm with the car. Mrs. Ottawacker then took Ottawacker Jr. out of the house for a walk, returning an hour later armed with various pasta dishes from a nearby restaurant called La Piccola Cucina. This fully complemented the wine and beer I had bought at Internarché.
 
We ate, played cards, read, and then retired for a reasonably early night: tomorrow promised to be a long day.