After yesterday’s late night in the field of disappointment, we awoke too early to get out of the Airbnb. The host left notes about being quiet after 10PM – use headphones for music and videos, don’t slam doors, but when the morning came, she was letting off fireworks, rehearsing a brass band and revving a Harley in the kitchen from 8AM. There’s something odd about those that demand quiet at night but don’t think that making a noise in the morning might bother the late-nighters, as if there is a justifiable difference – there isn’t.
We rolled down the hill and had some breakfast in the same place as yesterday (and last year). It was in a beautiful square with an ancient church, where today there was a wedding. A disabled man cowered over an electronic keyboard outside, everyone ignored him. It seems that even buskers have to justify themselves with a higher profile. We headed up the main street and began our ascent to the university on the top of the mountain – it’s steeper than a hill to get up there, you almost need crampons.
We stopped on our climb in another lovely square. Two students were walking up and I asked them if I could ask them about their uniform (it’s the original Harry Potter look). We had a really kool conversation with these bright lads that were here in Coimbra studying philosophy (Miguel and João). We talked to Mariana across the square at the Fado performance space – we talked about the Coimbra versus the Lisboa Portuguese guitar:
The main difference between a Portuguese guitar from Coimbra and one from Lisboa is the size and shape of the body, with the Coimbra guitar being larger and having a sharper, more angular design compared to the smaller, rounded Lisbon guitar; additionally, the Coimbra guitar usually features a teardrop-shaped headstock inlay while the Lisbon guitar has a snail-shaped one, resulting in a slightly different sound quality with the Coimbra producing a deeper tone and the Lisbon a brighter one.
We made it to the top and sat on a bench waiting for our 2 PM appointment to go to the famous library. We talked to two other disappointed fans who were at the show last night, also amazed at the fact that the headlining act walked off stage with the PA not working and no one officially said anything about it. We stood in the queue in the library and chatted to Spaniards and Nederlanders until we were let in to this amazing place with 60,000 books from the 16th to the 18th century. Check out the link to Biblioteca Joanina.
We also visited Saint Michael’s Chapel, the royal palace rooms and the chemistry labs building where they had all the original teaching contraptions and inventions from previous educational histories. The chapel was beautiful, it makes you wonder how they could create such beauty in these times when outside, the world was savage and full of ideas…it must be why they did it, proving to God that they were worthy.
The train back to Porto was the express, it shows the speed in the carriage – 226km/h. We made it after such a weird 24 hours of astounding beauty and disaster.
Music today was Camel – Mirage (1974), the US version with a different cover. I wonder, is it mixed differently? Usually, that would mean “oh no” but I like it. However, I can’t compare because my English album is in one of the unfortunate ‘to be cleaned’ boxes. I saw The Snow Goose tour at the Liverpool Stadium in the seventies, sold out, a great conceptual prog piece and Lady Fantasy from Mirage was the encore.