Coimbra was Portugal's capital in the 12th and 13th centuries, and the places that tell that story sit on one steep climb from the river to the top of the hill. This guide follows five of them, from the lower town to the upper town: the Church of Santa Cruz, where the first two kings of Portugal are buried, Praça do Comércio, the Almedina Arch, the Old Cathedral and the New Cathedral. It ends across the Mondego at the Quinta das Lágrimas, the garden tied to the story of Pedro and Inês de Castro, the most famous love story in Portuguese history.
Church and Monastery of Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz was founded in 1131 by a community of Augustinian canons led by Saint Theotonius, just outside the city walls, and was built between 1132 and 1223. It quickly became one of the most powerful monasteries in the kingdom, and King Afonso Henriques, the first king of Portugal, chose to be buried here. Because both he and his son Sancho I lie in the church, it has the status of a National Pantheon.
Almost nothing of the Romanesque church survives. What you see today is mostly from the 16th century: the main portal was built between 1522 and 1525 under the French sculptor Nicolau Chanterene, mixing late Gothic Manueline ornament with the new forms of the Renaissance, and in 1530 the two royal tombs were moved to the main chapel and set in carved monuments by the same workshop.
- The tombs of Afonso Henriques and Sancho I, on either side of the main chapel.
- The facade on Praça 8 de Maio, with its crowded Manueline and Renaissance carving.
Praça do Comércio
Praça do Comércio, also known as the Praça Velha, was the main square of the lower town, where merchants and craftsmen lived and traded below the walls. It is a long, sloping square lined with tall, narrow houses. At one end stands the Igreja de Santiago, a Romanesque church rebuilt in the last decades of the 12th century under King Sancho I and now a National Monument. In the 1540s another church was built on top of it for the city's Misericórdia, and it was only removed in the first half of the 20th century.
- The portal of the Igreja de Santiago, whose capitals are carved with plants and animals, some of them copied from the Old Cathedral.
The Almedina Arch
The Arco de Almedina is the last surviving medieval gate into the upper town. Its name comes from the Arabic word for the town, and its origins go back to the walls built in the 11th century, before the Christian reconquest. The arch was rebuilt and strengthened in the 12th century and remodelled in the 16th. Together with the tower built over it, it forms the gate complex known as the Barbican Gate. From the 14th century the tower was the seat of the town council, and it later housed the municipal archive.
- Stand under the arch at the top of the steps off Rua Ferreira Borges and look back: this is where the shopping streets of the lower town end and the steep lanes of the old upper town begin.
The Old Cathedral (Sé Velha)
The Sé Velha is one of the most important Romanesque buildings in Portugal. Afonso Henriques decided to pay for a new cathedral after the Battle of Ourique in 1139, and the main building was finished early in the 13th century. The design is attributed to Master Robert, probably a Frenchman who was also working on Lisbon Cathedral. With its high crenellated walls, thick buttresses and few narrow windows, it looks more like a small fortress than a church, a reminder of the wars of the time.
Inside, the main chapel holds a large carved and gilded wooden altarpiece made between 1498 and 1502 by the Flemish artists Olivier de Gand and Jean d'Ypres, in the flamboyant late Gothic style, telling the story of Mary and Christ. The cloister, begun in 1218, shows the shift from Romanesque to Gothic: each pointed arch frames two smaller round ones.
- The Porta Especiosa on the north side, a three-storey Renaissance portal from the 1530s attributed to the French sculptor João de Ruão.
- The tiles from Seville, put up around 1500, that survive in places, especially on the wall to the left of the entrance.
The New Cathedral (Sé Nova)
Higher up, close to the university, stands the New Cathedral. It was built as the church of the Jesuit college, starting in 1541, and finished in the 17th century. When the Marquis of Pombal expelled the Jesuits from Portugal in 1759, the church was left empty, and in 1772 the bishop moved his seat here from the Sé Velha. The facade is sober Mannerist below and Baroque above, with statues of four Jesuit saints in its niches.
- The stone baptismal font and the choir stalls in the main chapel, both brought from the Old Cathedral.
Quinta das Lágrimas and the story of Pedro and Inês
Across the Mondego from the old town lies the Quinta das Lágrimas, an estate with about 12 hectares of gardens and a palace that is now a hotel. Its name, Estate of Tears, comes from the story of Inês de Castro, a lady-in-waiting from Galicia. Prince Pedro, heir to the throne, fell in love with her around 1340, and the affair alarmed his father, King Afonso IV, who had her killed in 1355. When Pedro became king two years later, he took revenge on her killers.
The rest is legend. It is said that Pedro had Inês's body taken from the grave and placed on the throne, and that the court had to kiss her hand. In the garden, the Fonte das Lágrimas is said to have formed from her tears, and the red stain on its stones, in fact a kind of algae, is said to be her blood. The Fonte dos Amores nearby is where, according to tradition, Pedro sent her letters floating on the water. The lovers now lie in carved tombs facing each other at the monastery of Alcobaça, north of Lisbon.
- The views back across the river to the university tower and the old town. The Quinta is not on our scavenger hunt route; cross the Santa Clara bridge or the Pedro e Inês footbridge from the old town.
How to see them in one walk
Start in the lower town at Santa Cruz on Praça 8 de Maio and walk along Rua Visconde da Luz to Praça do Comércio. Climb the steps off Rua Ferreira Borges to the Almedina Arch, carry on up the steep lane to the Old Cathedral and keep climbing to the New Cathedral near the university. Come back down through the old town to the river and cross to the left bank for the Quinta das Lágrimas, which you can easily leave for another day.
See Coimbra with World City Trail
Our Coimbra scavenger hunt turns the old town into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops, from the Church of Santa Cruz to the Botanical Garden, and Santa Cruz, Praça do Comércio, the Barbican Gate, the Old Cathedral and the New Cathedral are all stops, along with the National Museum Machado de Castro, the University of Coimbra, the Minerva Stairs and Praça Dom Dinis. At each stop you solve a puzzle and learn a story, at your own pace.
There is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in Coimbra, for people who prefer a different format.
Play the Coimbra scavenger hunt →
Take the self-guided walking tour of Coimbra →
Play the outdoor escape game in Coimbra →
Facts checked in October 2026.