Coimbra - The city of the students

Coimbra has been called A cidade dos estudantes (The city of the students) or Lusa-Atenas (Lusitan-Athens), mainly because it is the site of the oldest and one of the largest universities in Portugal – the University of Coimbra, a public university whose origins can be traced back to the 13th century. Nowadays, it has students from 70 different nationalities; almost 10% of its students are foreigners, making it Portugal's most international university.

Coimbra is about 90 minutes south of Porto and is where we decided to spend a day on our way to Evora.  Of course, being the home of the oldest university in Portugal, visiting the university was high on our list. The University of Coimbra was originally established in 1290 in Lisbon, and then moved permanently to its current location in 1537.

On 22 June 2013, UNESCO added the university to its World Heritage List.




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