Buçaco - Coimbra - Fatima - Tomar

 We headed south through Buçaco National Forest (pronounced boo-sack-oh) to visit the stunning Buçaco Palace Hotel (located inside the forest). The former convent was destroyed and then used to build a 19th Century Manueline-Gothic style hunting palace for Portuguese royalty.  It was breathtaking and looked like something from a Disney movie!  Interestingly, at one time no women were allowed in the park, with the Queen being the only exception.  

Our next stop was Coimbra (pronounced queem-burr-ahh) for a visit to their university. The city used to be the capital of Portugal until 1241 when they moved the capital to Lisbon to help maintain their control of the south of the country. Coimbra University is one of the oldest universities in all of Europe. It is a public research university and was actually established in Lisbon first, back in in 1290.  It relocated a few times until moving permanently to Coimbra in 1537 (by order of King John III, or João III). Not only does Universidade de Coimbra have a long history, it was the only university in the country until 1559.

The Portuguese language was formalized (from the Porto accent) in the 1200's by King Dionisio I (known in English as King Denis I), and he helped to establish the university.  The students are known for their outfits (Nelia kept calling them costumes, and they're not quite uniforms, so I'm calling them outfits) which include a long black cape, still worn to this day (picture from 2019 here).  São Miguel Chapel was part of the original royal palace from the 16th century, and when they moved to that location the university decided to keep the chapel, thinking the students might attend (it seems they never did while they were students).  The students only seem to use the chapel when they want to get married.

My biggest interest was the university library, but unfortunately, you cannot take photos in the main library.  We entered through the old prison, at the bottom of the library.  The prison had also been part of the palace, and it was then used by the university (they had/have very strict rules).  Even if the students were incarcerated they still had to go to class, accompanied by the Academic Guards.  The 2nd level had books from the 1600's and 1700's and the library, as a whole, has 5,000 manuscripts and over 60,000 books (including many first editions).  Almost all of them have been digitally scanned and can be accessed by the students.  Here's the Wikipedia photo of the library, but it doesn't do it justice.

We tour other parts of the former royal palace such as the throne room, where doctoral students present their dissertation.  It was a lovely visit and I got to see more azulejos, which always gives me a smile.

Our next stop was the catholic shrine dedicated to Virgin Mary in the town of Fatima.  It's well known the world over, but I honestly didn't find it all that fascinating.  We moved on to the town of Tomar (pronounced too-mar) where they were known in the 1500's-1600's for making paper and textiles.  Their main claim-to-fame now is being the former headquarters of the Order of the Templars (our hotel was called "Hotel Dos Templários".