The Best Things to Do in Coimbra

Ranked list

1. 1
   

   The Joanina Library

   16.50 EUR

   Finished in 1728, roughly 60,000 volumes printed between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, walls 2.11 metres thick holding the interior stable without a single machine, and oak shelving chosen because it repels insects. Two colonies of bats have lived here for about two and a half centuries eating what gets through, which is why staff cover the six hardwood tables with leather every evening. You enter through a medieval prison, because that is the door.

   Why it made the list: Nothing else in Portugal is built the way this room is built, and the mechanism is more interesting than the gilding.

2. 2
   

   The Sé Velha

   3.00 EUR

   Begun in 1164, consecrated 1184, and the only Portuguese Romanesque cathedral of the Reconquest era to survive relatively intact. It looks like a fort because it was built like one. The carved capitals are what the parish calls the richest Romanesque iconographic programme in Portugal — and they contain no human figures and no biblical scenes at all, probably the work of Mozarabic artists settled in the city.

   Why it made the list: Three euros for a cathedral whose sculpture refuses to depict people. It is also the one monument most visitors walk past on their way down.

3. 3
   

   The Botanical Garden

   Free

   Created on the Marquis of Pombal’s initiative in 1772, thirteen hectares running down the hillside toward the river, and part of the same 2013 UNESCO inscription as the university. Open 09:00 to 20:00 from April to September and 09:00 to 17:30 through the winter. The only thing you pay for is an optional 10.00 EUR guided tour; the garden itself is free, and the university says so explicitly.

   Why it made the list: It is the largest free attraction in Coimbra by a wide margin, and the gentlest possible way to come down off the hill.

4. 4
   

   A Coimbra fado show

   16.00 EUR

   Not Lisbon fado in a different city: a serenade tradition out of the university, sung by men in the black academic cape, on a teardrop guitar tuned one whole tone below the Lisbon instrument. Fado ao Centro runs a roughly 50-minute show at 18:00 every day of the year, 16.00 EUR with a glass of Port included, and gives Coimbra bachelor’s and master’s students a free seat, capped at two a day.

   Why it made the list: The tuning is the whole thing, and hearing it once explains why this music sounds darker than the version you already know.

5. 5
   

   Mosteiro de Santa Cruz

   5.00 EUR (nave free)

   Founded in 1131, a National Pantheon, and the burial place of Afonso Henriques and Sancho I. The nave and the royal tombs are free and that is where nearly everybody stops. Five euros buys the Claustro do Silêncio, the chapter house, the sacristy paintings, the museum of sacred art with the relics of St Teotónio, and the high choir stalls on the second floor — the only vantage point over the whole length of the church.

   Why it made the list: The free half is good and the paid half is better, and most visitors never find that out.

6. 6
   

   Conímbriga

   10.00 EUR

   The best-preserved Roman town in Portugal, and the place Coimbra got its name from. Mosaic floors where they were laid, with the Casa dos Repuxos’ water gardens still running through them. Open daily 10:00 to 18:00, ticket office closes 17:15, and closed on 1 January, Easter Sunday, 1 May, 24 July and 24–25 December. SIT line 209 runs three buses each way on weekdays, with the last return at 17:55.

   Why it made the list: It is the strongest day trip in the region, and the timetable makes it an all-or-nothing decision rather than an add-on.

7. 7
   

   Sala dos Capelos

   In the university ticket

   The first dynasty’s throne room, now the hall where doctorates are conferred. Its wooden ceiling carries 172 panels of grotesque motifs — sea monsters, mermaids, plants — and its walls carry portraits of every Portuguese king from Afonso Henriques to Manuel II with one deliberate omission: the Philippine dynasty of 1580 to 1640 is simply not there. Sixty years of Spanish Habsburg kings, edited off the wall. John I was proclaimed in this room in 1385.

   Why it made the list: It is already on your ticket, and it is the clearest surviving statement of what this university thinks it is.

8. 8
   

   Santa Clara-a-Nova

   6.00 EUR

   The seventeenth-century replacement monastery on the ridge above the drowned one. In the main chapel’s retable sits a silver-and-crystal urn holding the incorrupt body of Queen Isabel. Go down to the coro baixo and you find her original Gothic stone tomb, carved by Mestre Pero in 1330, which the Poor Clares dragged up the hill with them when the floods drove them out. Six euros, three for groups of six or more and for ages 12 to 18, free under 12.

   Why it made the list: Two tombs of the same queen in one building, and almost nobody crosses the river to see either of them.

9. 9
   

   Kayaking the Mondego

   Not published here

   Four to five hours downriver, and the strongest rating of any Coimbra product with a meaningful sample — 4.7 across 373 reviews on GetYourGuide when we checked on 15 September 2026. It is also the only thing on this list that is not a building, which is exactly what makes it the right second-day choice. Prices on that platform moved between page loads on the same day we read them, so we print none.

   Why it made the list: Coimbra is a river city that keeps its visitors on a hill. This is the corrective, and the numbers back it.

10. 10
    

    The Alta to Baixa descent

    Free

    Start at the university courtyard and walk down: the Sé Nova at 1.00 EUR a minute from the ticket kiosk, the Sé Velha fifteen minutes further, the stepped lane officially named Rua do Quebra-Costas — Back-Breaker Street — and out through the Arco de Almedina, a free public street, into the lower town. It ends at the royal tombs on Praça 8 de Maio.

    Why it made the list: It costs nothing, it solves the hill, and it strings four of the entries above into one line you only have to climb once.

At a glance

On the map