Tag: portugal

Postcard from Coimbra, Portugal: Churches and Cloisters

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The nuns did it. All those Saturdays of catechism in addition to Sunday services at Star of the Sea.

Plus trips to confession. Having to enter the curtained cell, knowing stern Father Habit was there on the other side of the screen, habitually demanding you come up with a list of sins, even at age seven. Forcing you to make up stories about bad things you didn’t do in order to convince him to finally dismiss you with the standard penance to utter “three Hail Marys and two Our Fathers and all your sins will be forgiven.” A pretty nice out if you’re feeling guilty about something.

Anyway. Count me in as one of the lapsed, generally entering churches only for weddings and funerals, which fortunately do not summon me frequently. Kind of like the angel falling off the rooftop in one of these photos.

But, while traveling, I make amends. Crash Catholicism make-up periods. A pilgrimage. Rarely less than a church a day. If crossing the threshold and peering into every nook and cranny open to the public counts, I turn into a faithful church-goer.

Frankly, I’m smitten by ancient churches – the history, beauty, power and mystical symbolism they hold. So many stories. The demonstrations of people’s belief in miracles. Soaring walls whispering mysterious secrets.

Most of the time taking photos is inappropriate, but here are a few photos from this voyeuristic approach to Catholicism taken in Coimbra….

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Postcard from Coimbra, Portugal: Street Art Series Continues

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The camera refuses to remain pocketed in the face of this form of unlicensed artistic (sometimes) expression.

With 20,000 students winding their way to and from classes at the University of Coimbra, walls are mercilessly targeted. Perhaps those black student cloaks too conveniently camouflage cans of spray paint.

Most of the results are scrawled immature sexual innuendos or screaming political manifestos, surely unwelcome to those who live behind the targeted walls. Few we encountered evidenced much underlying talent.

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Others in this series:

https://postcardsfromsanantonio.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/postcard-from-porto-elevating-street-art/

https://postcardsfromsanantonio.wordpress.com/2014/04/23/postcards-from-san-miguel-de-allende-redirecting-grafitti-artists-part-four/

https://postcardsfromsanantonio.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/postcard-from-san-miguel-de-allende-redirecting-graffiti-artists-part-three/

https://postcardsfromsanantonio.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/postcard-from-san-miguel-de-allende-redirecting-grafitti-artists-part-two/

https://postcardsfromsanantonio.wordpress.com/2014/04/01/postcard-from-san-miguel-de-allende-redirecting-grafitti-artists-part-one/

https://postcardsfromsanantonio.wordpress.com/2013/09/18/postcard-from-oaxaca-art-of-the-streets/

https://postcardsfromsanantonio.wordpress.com/2013/09/18/postcard-from-oaxaca-hecho-street-art-invades-museums-colonial-walls/

https://postcardsfromsanantonio.wordpress.com/2013/02/16/temporary-art-installations-illuminate-downtown-storefronts/

Postcard from Coimbra, Portugal: Sighing Capital of the World?

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There are lots of reasons Coimbra is famous, but I’m just going to get right to the point about what impressed me most.

The size of the “sighs.” Meringues.

“Sighs of the nuns” are what a friend in Mexico told us they are called there, as we would traipse through the streets hand in hand with daughter Kate on many missions to find the egg white and sugar treats wherever we traveled.

In Coimbra, the name is shortened to simply sighs, “suspiros.” In Coimbra, the trek is simplified. They are humongous. You can’t miss them prominently displayed in windows.

We don’t know the story behind these, but, until someone calls me on this, I’m willing to proclaim Coimbra the big-nun-sigh capital of the world. Don’t know why nuns sighed more emphatically here, but perhaps it dates from major relief when Coimbra was liberated from the Moors in the year 1064. Or perhaps it’s caused by centuries of antics of students enrolled at the University of Coimbra, which opened later, not until 1290.

I had no excuse to try one; Kate’s long passed that stage. Well, maybe. Anyway, they were really hard to photograph, being plain white. So, just for the sake of showing her one, I purchased a medium-sized one.

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The Mister consented to let me use his hand for scale, but he didn’t touch it.

Then. All by myself. Sorry, to confess, Kate. I ate the model.

But I just ate one. And it certainly was not the largest specimen on the market.