Where to eat
Restaurant “Terraços da Alta” – near the University you can have a drink or a meal with a great view over the city.
Restaurant “O Pátio” – a traditional restaurant settled in the downtown secluded square Pátio da Inquisição.
Tavern “Casa Costa” – traditional tavern close to the University.
View from “Terraços da Alta” restautant (credit: Hugo Guímaro)
What to eat
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Roasted piglet – traditional dish from the region that consists of a small pig roasted for two hours in wood-fired stove. In the downtown tavern Porta Larga at Rua das Padeiras 35 you can have it on a sandwich or dish. |
Chanfana – old goat cooked in red wine. You can try it at restaurante O Pátio |
Conventual sweets: Pastéis de Tentúgal, Queijadas, Arrufadas, pastéis de Santa Clara. Pastelaria Briosa at Largo da Portagem has a great variety of these. |
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Where to have a drink
Instituto Justiça e Paz – it serves lunches and has café/bar service in the afternoon. Its views over the river and the Botanical Garden’s wood can’t be missed.
View from Justiça e Paz balcony (credits: Justiça e Paz Institute)
Praça da República cafés (Tropical, Académico,…) – these are the assembly points in Coimbra’s night life, but are also very ameanable to have a drink after work. Located in a large square and shaded by old sycamores just by Jardim da Sereia, a garden where you can try to find the man-mermaid that named it. In this garden there is a colony of Iberian midewife toads Alytes cisternasii that can be heard in autumn.
Praça da Républica (credit: erasmus)
OTHER PLACES: Praxis - sells the beers it produces. It has a variety of beers included the recovered beer brands Onyx and Topázio produced in the region since 1924 / Epicura - Drink an artesinal beer looking at a postcard view of the hill crowned by the University’s buildings.
Where to hear Fado
Coimbra’s fado is different from others as it is only played by male members of the University dressed with the students’ uniform and cape. Some don’t even agree that it is called fado, and call it Canção de Coimbra. It mainly sings about love and longing for Coimbra, but during the academic crisis of the 60’s it was also used as interventional music against the ditactorship of the New State.
Coimbra’s Fado (credit: Hugo Guímaro)
Café Santa Cruz (everyday at 18h, free) - This old café opened in 1923 and was originally built in the 16th century as a church, but it has also already been a police station and a funeral home.
Santa Cruz Church and Café (credit: Hugo Guímaro)
OTHER PLACES: Casa Fado ao Centro – shows everyday at 18h (price approximatley 15€/pax) / À Capella – Casa de Fados -. Have a drink and listen to fado in this old chapel that has been a Jewish sinagogue and a shelter for pilgrims going to Santiago de Compostela.