Tomar and Coimbra

Last night we stayed in a very pretty town called Tomar. It is famous for a monestary on the top of the hill, although this is the nearest that we got to it.

What interested me more was a thing called the Festival of the Trays that takes place every four years, and of course, not while we were there.

As part of the festival ladies carry a basket filled with loaves of bread and flowers on their heads. Strangely, the rule is that the basket has to be piled as high as the ladies are tall.

Being on the tall side myself, and standing next to one of the baskets I have the horrible feeling that the crown on the top doesn't count, and that it would need a lot of extra bread and flowers if I was to wear it.

We found some nice artwork to show how it should look, and I got slightly in the spirit of it with my backpack on my head.

We had a good nosey around the town and saw a lovely square,

and interesting working waterwheel.

After joining our fellow bus travellers we drove further north to Coimbra. In the spirit of the day we also didn't visit the most famous sight in Coimbra. The attraction is a library inside the university of Coimbra, also on the top of a hill.  However, we did actually get to see the outside of some of it's impressive buildings.

Firstly though, we stopped for a coffee in an ancient square with a gorgeous convent building as a backdrop, 

and then set off up the extremely steep walk up to the university.

I have gone a bit out of order as I have already used the University photo, but after reaching the top there was a good botanic garden to visit that stretched all the way back down the hill on the other side. 

Part of it was a bamboo forest, and then across the road by a river was my favourite thing, a giant grassy teddy bear.

Who knows why it was there, or why it had it's back to a pedestrian bridge with stained glass sides.