Coimbra, Portugal

I took my vacation week to go visit a friend who is studying in Portugal this year. She's living and going to school in the small city of Coimbra, located about half way between Porto and Lisbon. It's the third largest city in Portugal, but it's still really quite small.

Here are some photos from the two days that I spent in Coimbra:

part of an old aquaduct

 lots of the architecture in Portugal is heavily influenced by Moorish and Arab culture, which you can see in the decorations on this house

 the university in Coimbra is one of the oldest in Europe

this is part of the law school buildings - the other colleges have more modern, austere buildings from the era of dictatorship

 the orange trees were amazing!

the side entry to the Sé Velha, the old cathedral

 

 the Sé Velha is very visibly influenced by Moorish architecture

and by Islamic culture since there aren't many (any?) representations of animate beings, just geometric patters and plant images

 Portugal is known for its tiles everywhere, especially on the facades of buildings

the Sé Velha has tiled walls all over the inside

one of the main streets of Coimbra

 

 a fountain

 Sé Nova, the new cathedral, is very different from the old one

the Santa-Cruz church is known for the huge tiled "paintings" on the walls inside

 

they're called azulejos