O Meu Diário de Coimbra

The Music On The Square

On the upper level of the Praça do Comércio, where most of the shops are — the level below holds concerts and is more of a big open square — students in black capes from the University of Coimbra are singing in small groups, chanting, yelling, walking arm in arm, and selling postcards. There is an exuberance in the air these days because it’s the start of the festival Queima das Fitas (“Burning of the Ribbons”), which marks the end of the academic year and the start of the final exam period. Here, they celebrate before finals. In front of the Mosteiro de Santa Cruz, a troubled man playing the keyboard — sometimes he plugs it in, sometimes he doesn’t — with his face inches from the keys is being drowned out by a man with a man bun sitting on the cement coping around the fountain in front of the church a few feet away, effortlessly playing Brazilian music on his acoustic guitar.