We picked up a rental car in Porto in the morning. Driving was an adventure in Portugal - a direct quote from our guide book was, "Driving in Portugal should be avoided at all costs." Good thing that we take the advice of guide books with a grain of salt because having the rental car was one of the highlights of our trip. We drove to Coimbra first.
We had planned to get there in time for church, but we grossly underestimated the time it would take to negotiate the unlabeled one-way streets and confusing roundabouts.
Maybe part of the reason we were missed church was because we were trying to use a map like this...
when we really needed one like this...
We visited the University of Coimbra. It must have been the end of exams or something, because some celebrating had obviously occurred.
Next we drove to the Roman ruins at Conimbriga. They were extensive and fascinating. There was a plumbing system intact and many mosaics covering the ground and walls. The excavators even found a fountain which they restored to working order. You dropped a coin into a slot and it started working. We couldn't believe how old it was - it seemed so advanced, which I guess really says something about their culture.
We we surprised as we drove around how many towns had castles. I would never have thought of Portugal as being a country of castles, but we saw so many as we drove down the coast. This was one that we passed at Montemo-o-Velho.
We had our first adventure of arriving in a town without accommodation that night. We had been unable to find anything to book online, so we arrived in Leiria and walked around until we found a local youth hostel. During our wanderings we saw the most impressive display of parking skills that either of us has ever seen. This man was trying to park in an alley and he was so close to the wall that he had folded his mirror in and we were waiting for him to scrape the side of his car against it, but he didn't. We just stood there and watched him in amazement. When he was finished there was literally less than one inch between the wall and his car. He did it all in a manual car as well - amazing!
Notice yet another castle on the hill.
Amazing Christmas lights again.
We fell into bed exhausted, but the next morning noticed how amazingly nice everything was for a hostel. We decided to stay in more Portuguese hostels before we left.
This was the patio that was attached to our room that we didn't notice until morning.
