It was quiet, and I was in awe. The ceiling of Saint Michael's Chapel was a sight to marvel at. The colored veins coiled until they were all tangled up. I craned my neck to look up and stayed like that until a herd of tourists came in, raising their arms with their smartphones and fixing their gazes on the ceiling. We looked like sheeps looking for our shepherd. I left and went inside the Royal Palace, just next to the chapel. I was alone for the first five minutes, and I relished the limited time I was gifted to soak in the red carpet clothing the floors, the thoroughly detailed tiles of monsters and mythology perforating the ceiling, and the sequence of historical paintings lined up on the wall.



The Baroque Library came next, and my neck was starting to hurt. I knew that these books were not forgotten, but just shelved. Only experts and people in power could rifle through them. For visitors like me, we could only look at them from afar. We could only trace the cracks on their spines and the dust particles decorating their pages and cases. No cameras were allowed other than the eyes, and I only had 10 minutes to record the library’s architectural grandeur in my memory. I had medicines to cure my neck pain, but no dose could heal my regret if I didn’t savor every second I could in the hall.



I left the University of Coimbra and began to sweat again. I thought my digital maps were pointing me to an uphill walk, but it was a path of descending steps. My hips swayed as I cruised on the stony pavement until I found myself in the garden of bamboo trees. For the entire time, I was on my own. There were no birds chirping or nearby conversations that I could eavesdrop on. It was a monk’s journey in a windless forest. I took my chance to snap photos I could go back to. I saw an abandoned chapel with a dirtied statue of Mary inside, but the sign said it was a chapel of Saint Benedict. I turned off my digital maps and followed my instincts until I found myself walking up again toward the Old Cathedral of Coimbra.



When I came inside the cathedral, the tourists started to leave. I couldn’t pray. The surroundings were almost bare, as if every piece in the Lord’s house wanted to become just relics of the past. The altar, however, told a different story. Its faded gold accents underlined the carved statues of religious figures. I found the Lord and His Cross at the top, their colors almost mingling with the tableau. I whispered a short prayer, thanked Him and His family, and wandered around the courtyard. The house of cloisters reminded me of a rectory. I was tugged back into a period when I wasn’t born yet, and I roamed around at my own pace. I entered a chamber sprayed with the perfume of mold, musk, and mortality and saw two abandoned caskets in stone to my right. To my left, a Christ-less cross had its wood chafed. I exited the hall and showed myself out of the church.



For a few more hours after that, I wandered. My feet hurt, and my rubber boots were starting to clink against the stony paths. Coimbra was a rollercoaster trail: up, down, twisted roads, then back down before a narrow uphill street showed up again. The sun was setting, and I checked where the station was from my location. A good 15-minute walk turned into over half an hour. I missed my first bus home, so I slowed down and wiped my sweat. I arrived at the station, and the machine kept declining my debit card. The cashier was kind enough to purchase the ticket for me. My bus came, but my feet were stuck in their place. I wished I had pretended I didn’t have the ticket at all.