After a good night's sleep, we were ready to go to join our ship, the Viking Torgil in Porto. First of all we had to make sure our cases were packed and outside our hotel door for the staff to take to the coach for us. We wouldn't see them again until we were on board.
We then just had to eat some breakfast and take ourselves on to the coach for 0830. It was going to be a long day.
Luckily, Viking had arranged a nice comfort stop before we carried on to Coimbra.
Coimbra is famous for its University which is the oldest institution of that type in the Portuguese speaking world, having been established in 1290. The students are often to be seen wearing black capes about the city and they are thought to be the inspiration for Harry Potter and Hogwarts. J K Rowling apparently lived there for a while.
The University has some buildings dating from the 1930's that are interesting examples of the Brutalist style of architecture often favoured by 20th Century dictators like Mussolini. I didn't take any photos of these.
What the University is really famous for is the library. This was one of the most amazing places I have ever visited. Unfortunately photography is not allowed in the library itself, but you can photograph the exterior and other associated buildings.
This is the entrance to the library square. The rags you can see on the gate are the remains of the students' black cloaks that they ripped off once they had graduated.
How grumpy was I that you could not take photos inside?
Only small groups are allowed inside the library and timings are strictly controlled, so we had a bit of time to visit the adjacent church, where photos were allowed.
It was no ordinary church as you might expect.
The ceilings were beautiful.
The organ was amazing and still in good working order.
Someone had recently been married and one of the heart shaped helium-filled balloons had escaped and was stuck on the ceiling.
Luckily, a cherub had managed to get hold of it.
The tiling was exquisite.
Next was the library. It was truly outstanding. The books are old, but so too is the building and all of the library furniture. The shelves are made of noble woods - timber from Brazilian and African colonies of the Portuguese empire. That empire had also contributed the gold and the gold leaf that was everywhere. The King, who contributed, apparently got a percentage of all of the tons of gold that Portugal stripped from its colonies every year. They were literally rolling in gold.
The library had three rooms of books and every wall was shelved from floor to ceiling. The shelves themselves were carved and inlaid or decorated with gold. The ladders providing access to the shelves were hidden in little recesses so as not to spoil the lines of the shelves. Naturally, the books were invaluable and they could be subject to insect attack. Well, they thought of that too and they have a small colony of Pipistrelle bats, who came out at night and eat the insects. The vast tables were covered in cloths at night to protect them from batshit. These bats may have been there from the start, when the library was built over 300 years ago. Certainly everything else was thought of.
It is magnificent and if you ever get the chance, you should visit it.
As we came blinking out into the sunshine, we had a chance to look at the fine square that is part of this old university.
Apparently, the clocktower was built after students complained that they were late for classes because they did not know the time.
The coach then took us into town for a little free time and a look at all the lovely cake shops that there were. The cakes are supposed to be huge, because students have hearty appetites. These are meringues on the top two shelves.
We also vivited a shop that sold more tins of sardines than I have ever seen in my life. They had a multitude of other tinned fish and a vast range of designs of tins that celebrated all sorts of national and international events. There were tasters and they were very good, so we bought some to take home.
Bizarrely, they had this tiled mural showing the inside of the library!
It is actually pretty good.
We then took another short coach ride to our lunch destination, which was quite a large modern restaurant. It did seat people at long tables, but Sharon elbowed her way in and found a nice table for four on the upper level. There was red and white wine on the table along with water and soft drinks and beer were available.
We had quite a nice dinner and the wine was very nice - especially the white. Luckily they would bring more if you were unfortunate to run out.
I was brave and had the codfish with potatoes, which was actually pretty good and unlike anything you would find at home. Of course, salt cod, Bacalhau, is everywhere in Portugal and it is not as salty as you might think.
Lunch also came with an interlude, during which three men sang and played Folk music. Now that might sound a little weird, but they were very good and we quite enjoyed it all.
Then it was back on the bus for the final leg to the Viking Torgil, which was docked at Gaia, which is actually on the opposite bank of the river from Porto.
It was a pretty windy approach to the quay and you pass a number of the big port shippers warehouses and visitor centres.
One of these was Grahams and it is there that guests could go for a special meal and tasting that night. We didn't as the cost was a fairly eye watering 260 Euros a head, but by all accounts it was pretty good, so maybe next time....
Anyway, we arrived at the boat about 4 o'clock and we had time to sit on the deck and look around the area in the sunshine.
After the cases are delivered to the cabin we were all asked to the lounge for a quick talk and then we had to go back to our rooms, find our life-jackets, put them on and then go on deck, to be sure that we all knew what to do in the event of an emergency.
It is not as easy as you think. Well, it wasn't for me!
I'm not sure if this was because they give you some port and tonic in the lounge as wee welcome to the boat before they do the safety drill.
Nor Michael.
After the drill, it was back to the bar for another drink and then down to the restaurant for dinner.
The grilled sardines were lovely. The steak less so - a bit chewy for Cindy and me. Michael enjoyed the Portuguese fish and seafood stew and Sharon actually had a lamb curry.
We were a bit concerned that apart from the steak it was all OK rather than great, but we need not have worried it was all pretty good thereafter. Maybe, we just made the wrong choices. The wine was fine, though.
After dinner we went to the bar, which was pretty quite as all the old Americans had gone to bed or perhaps they had gone ashore to do a bit of clubbing.
If they did they would have missed the short, unexpected night sail that we did.
This was Michael's retirement cruise and he had only finished working a few days previously,so we had brought him a little gift of some handmade chocolates from the Highlands and he seemed delighted to get them.
All in all, a very fine introduction to the boat that would be our home for the next few days.
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