Our next stop was Coimbra in Portugal. It was interesting to see the signs go from Spanish to Portuguese and watch some of the traffic signs change meanings. It was a beautiful and expensive drive. Three of the four countries that we visited have toll roads. This one was the most expensive toll day.... It was about 80 Euros to drive from Avila to Coimbra. We could have taken mostly back roads, but it would have added more than 2 hours to our trip that day and no one wanted to do that. By now, both Jer and I had gotten the hang on driving our big van on small roads and could look around a little bit more. Coimbra is known for its library and university. Its library is the oldest one in Europe. You can't take pictures in it, but picture Beauty and the Beast library and you're on the right track. It was very beautiful. They have bats that come out at night and eat the bugs to preserve the books and big leather coverings that protect the large wooden tables from bat poop. I thought that the hidden staircases and the ladders that pulled out from the bookshelves were so cool too! Most everything was written in latin with sprinkles of greek in it. It was a very hot and sunny day. We almost missed our tour because we didn't know where the entrance was. There was a group at the gate, we asked the guard if it was our group. He said no and told us to sit down and rest Jer's leg while we waited for ours... turns out it had been our group, so one tour guide insisted that we did miss it and we'd have to hike down to the office to work it out. Another one just let us in because it was an hours self-guided tour and it didn't really matter. The palace/university was interesting for it's history but we really came for the library. I'm glad we didn't miss that. It was Sunday, so after our tour we went and listened to another session of General Conference on the way to our next stop. It was a little different to not listen to all 5 sessions of conference in one go, but I have had to listen from stake centers at different times than I'm used to before. What was nice about this one is that we could down load a session and listen to it when it fit in for us. I love technology.
Ninja Seth.
We kept seeing this symbol everywhere in Portugal. I knew it had something to do with exploration. Wayne explained that it was the latitudinal lines on the globe and it was a tool used by explorers to plot their course. It was later adopted by the royalty as a symbol of the country and their explorations.
This is the university jail... and the toilets in the jail.
I loved all the windows. They ALL had these little reading benches. That would be a safer way to read than by candlelight in a library full of books. This particular library was built in the 1500s but the library was put together in the 1200s. Every time the royalty changed capitals, the library would follow. The library cost three year's income for the university to build.
This is the lower library where they allow pictures... the upper one is really unique.
A lot of keys and locks we saw all through our trip were quite unique.
Evelyn notice that the angel on the roof was lining up with the jet stream.... she worked her way around until she got them just right.
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