Neighbourhoods of Coimbra

The UNESCO hill: university, two cathedrals, a stepped lane called Back-Breaker Street, and a public lift that rises 51 metres so your calves do not have to.

The flat commercial lower town between the hill and the river. Most of the city’s restaurant addresses, its main shopping spine, and no climb to get home.

The left bank across the Mondego: a drowned Gothic monastery, a queen buried twice on the ridge above it, and the only side of Coimbra a car forgives.

One square doing the work of a quarter: Portugal’s first two kings in a free nave, a café inside the old church, and Rua da Sofia heading north.

Coimbra’s twentieth-century residential district: a shopping centre, a stadium that has hosted Guns N’ Roses, and almost no reason for a two-day visitor.