No tour of Northern Portugal is complete without a visit to Buçaco, a mountain forest located just northeast of Coimbra on the way to Viseu. Buçaco is a delightful refuge of cypress groves, ferns, statues, fountains, and formal gardens. It's also home to the Palace Hotel do Buçaco  , which may be Europe's best value in a grand hotel.

1,400 years of forestry

The Buçaco Forest was first settled by Benedictine monks in the 6th Century. Later, it was administered by priests from Coimbra Cathedral, and a Papal edict of 1622 declared that women entering the forest would be excommunicated.

The Discalced Carmelites, an order of barefooted monks, took over in 1628. They built a monastery and surrounded the 250-acre (105-hectare) forest with a wall. Over the centuries, the monks and the government foresters who succeeded them have planted nearly 400 Portuguese varieties of trees, shrubs, and flowers while importing some 300 species from as far away as Mexico, Chile, and Japan.

From battleground to public park

In 1810, 66,000 French troops attacked the Duke of Wellington and his army of British and Portuguese soldiers during the unsuccessful Napoleonic invasion of Portugal. The forest survived, and so did the monastery--although it fell into government hands in 1834, when monasteries were abolished throughout Portugal.

Later in the 19th Century, the Portuguese royal family commissioned an Italian operatic scene painter and architect to build a summer palace and hunting lodge in the Buçaco Forest. The building (see photo below) was completed in 1907, shortly before the assassination of the king and crown prince. The king's Swiss chef obtained government permission to turn the palace into a hotel in 1910, and guests have been wallowing in pseudo-Manueline architecture and Edwardian comforts ever since.

Luso Spa

LUSO

Located north of Coimbra, just off the A1 Lisbon-Oporto highway, Luso is an attractively situated spa resort whose famous bottle mineral water gushes freely from its fountains. In the 11th century it was just a village linked to a monastery at Vacariça, long before its hot-water springs became popular in the 18th century. What to see. The spa centre specialises in the treatment of arteriosclerosis, an arterial disease occurring mostly in the elderly, characterised by inelasticity and thickening of the vessel walls, with lessened blood flow. The thermal waters, which originate from a spring below the chapel of São João, are said to be of additional value to sufferers of renal problems and rheumatism. Nearby. Luso lies on the fringe of the Serra do Buçaco, a wooded ridge about 15 km long running northwards from Penacova on the River Mondego. Protected as a national park, the forest is noted for its huge cypress trees of Mexican origin, which stand in a walled enclosure several kilometres in diameter, on the southern slopes of the mountain. The area is also famous for being the scene of Wellington’s victory over the French under Massena in 1810.

 

COIMBRA

Birthplace of six kings and the seat of Portugal's first university, reputedly the second-oldest in the world, Coimbra's tradition runs deep, with black-caped students swarming the town during term time. Occupied by the Moors, the city was captured by the Christians in 1064, becoming the capital of the country under the first Portuguese dynasty. The capital was transferred to Lisbon in the 13th century. After 1567 it was one of three seats (with Lisbon and Évora) of the Inquisition in Portugal, who were particularly active here in the 1620s. What to see. Coimbra's ancient cathedral is one of the finest examples of Romanesque architecture in Portugal. Built in the 12th century on the site of a Moorish mosque, it boasts a fine Flemish carved retable above the high altar and a Cistercian cloister containing an impressive 16th-century limestone relief of the Holy Family. Founded in 1131, the church and monastery of Santa Cruz are rich examples of the city's own early 16th century school of sculpture. The first two kings of Portugal, Afonso Henriques and Sancho I, were re-interred in the chancel in 1520. Housing an interesting collection of paintings, sculpture and religious objects, the Macahdo de Castro Museum is located in a charming Renaissance building, the former Bishop's Palace, with a lovely view of the roofs and towers of Coimbra. Once the royal palace of the Alcaçovas, Coimbra University was founded in 1307 by King Dinis. Its library is widely considered to have the loveliest interior in Portugal, and one of the richest book collections in the world. Nearby. On the other side of the Mondego River, the Gothic ruins of the Old Convent of Santa Clara are where the holy queen, Saint Isabel, spent her life after the death of her husband, King Denis, in 1325. The excavated site of Conimbriga 14 km south of the city shows evidence of Roman habitation as early as the 2nd century BC. But it was under Augustus, from about 25 BC, that Conimbriga became a substantial town; its fascinating excavated remains include villas, tessellated pavements, walls and bathss.