Let me make this perfectly clear. The next thing we did on our tour with Nadia was probably the least interesting activity/place of the trip, but that's not her fault. It was totally my fault for misreading my research and putting it on the agenda of the tour. (Nadia, if you are reading this, don't feel bad, it's all my fault).
Well, first we went to a little cafeteria at the Machado de Castro Museum for some water and a rest (it's a bit daunting to realize that I'm closer in age to 70 than to 45). The cafeteria had a wonderful terrace with views nearly as good as we had from the viewpoint at the university.
I had read about the museum and the Cryptoporticus of Aeminium and totally blew it. Afterwards I looked back at my sources and it turns out they were raving about the museum which had an art collection starting from Roman times through the 14th-16th Century.
The Roman ruins weren't anywhere close to as interesting as the Roman ruins beneath Barcelona (Editor: Here we go again. Sigh. Writer: Did I mention we spent a month in Barcelona in 2019?). We kept turning corners and thinking it would get more interesting, and yet it really didn't. Oh well, not everything we did could be fabulous. After all, we did two things in a month in Barcelona that we were underwhelmed by. (Editor: Knock it off! Writer: Two partial days of being underwhelmed ain't bad).
Just for background, Aeminium was the Roman city that eventually became Coimbra. The ruins are are the understructure for the forum. It could have been interesting, but it really wasn't. Oh well, one bad apple didn't spoil the whole bunch for the trip. And, to be fair, it's still pretty neat to be walking around a building that's around 2,000 years old. Doesn't happen very often in the States.
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