Coimbra is famous as the seat of learning for all Portugal—for many centuries, and still, the only university town in the realm. The huge square bulk of the university buildings on the crest of the hill overlooking the town typify the absolute domination of the place by the academical tradition. The hotel on the Alameda, like other hostelries of its sort, has no lack of commercial customers, but even they, assertive as they are, are swamped by the university professors, staff and graduates, who flock to its tables for their meals; whilst in the streets bookshops jostle each other all filled with text-books, and the unmistakable students are everywhere. And yet, with all this academical presence, there is none of that staid atmosphere of aloof erudition which is especially noticeable at Cambridge, and, to a lesser degree, at Oxford. It is true that the youngsters at Coimbra affect a garb at which the present-day undergraduate at Cambridge would scoff, if he did not proceed to more violent means to reduce its primness. A very clerical-looking black frock-coat, buttoned to the chin, is _de rigueur_, covered by a long black cloak reaching to the wearer’s heels, although, to tell the truth, this cloak, like a Cambridge third-year man’s gown, is oftener festooned over one shoulder or trailed along upon the arm than worn decorously as intended.
These Coimbra youths wear no head covering, and affect a gravity of demeanour whilst in the streets that gives them all the appearance of budding priests. But the absence of a collegiate system brings both staff and students into more direct contact with the town than is the case with our older universities, and the peculiar learned atmosphere of the High at Oxford or King’s Parade at Cambridge does not exist. It is a stiff climb up the hill to the university, and the cathedrals. The former is built round three sides of a large court, with a tower in one corner and an observatory in the open face, the enormous palace of the rector occupying one entire side of the square. Seven good light classrooms and a fine hall, senate-house, and examination rooms, give ample accommodation; and the view of the city from the end of the corridor containing the lecture-rooms is exceedingly fine. The library is a gorgeous gilt and over-decorated room in the florid taste of the eighteenth century, the worst possible style for a place of quiet study; and almost the only attractive feature in the exterior of the university is the fine Manueline doorway to the chapel in the great quadrangle. Here twisted cables, rich mouldings, floreated crockets and pinnacles, armillary spheres and crosses, the usual notes of the style, mark the work as being of the period when Portugal was ebullient with feverish energy and ambition.