I’m going to Coimbra in Portugal for what is essentially a lads weekend, though some highbrow activities wouldn’t go amiss.
Does any one have any advice/tips/recommendations?
There are Roman ruins there, but I don’t recall seeing the town in any detail.
Moved Cafe Society --> IMHO.
IIRC Tuesdays and Thursdays are the student nights out, very much recommended (well it’s pretty much what the town is for, there isn’t that much else :D) I think you have just missed the “Queima das fitas”, the burning of the ribbons, quite possibly the craziest party in all of Europe.
Check out the students, they wear capes. See the rips they have in the bottom? If someone is a good friend they rip your cape with their teeth. Only a true friend would do it, because the capes are never washed! If you see someone with a red ribbon sewn in it’s because the person who ripped their cape died.
You’re close to Porto, so go to Porto to taste port!
You’ll be very close to Bucaco Forest, which is a nice park.
The Roman ruins (Conimbriga) are outside the town, but they’re well worth seeing. Go and visit the library at the university - it’s very cool, and they keep bats inside to stop insects from getting at the books. It’s a nice town to walk around, they have trolley buses, there’s some excellent food, it rained so hard one day that we were there that there was a landslide… this is what I remember about Coimbra.