The Ruins of Conímbriga

Today I am going to talk about the famous ruins of Conímbriga. Conímbriga can be found more or less about 10km away from the city of Coímbra, it was a city in the ancient Hispanic world that, for different reasons, we have been able to conserve quite well - they are the best Roman ruins that you can find in Portugal.

A bit of history

As I have explained, Conímbriga was orignially an ancient Roman city with the dates of its creation being calculated at around 139BC.

Its glory as a city was during the 1st and 2nd century AD, which was also when the construction of the majority of the noble houses occurred, along with the thermal baths and the forum. It was quite an important city as it sat right between two large cities at the time, Braca (Braga) and Olisipo (Lisbon), and the Roman road passed through Conímbriga.

The most interesting thing is how they conserve the ruins, already in the 4th century AD they built quite a rustic wall in order to protect themselves from the Barbarian invasion making the city a little bit smaller. Then in the year 464AD, Conímbriga was taken over by the Germanic tribes and they destroyed part of the wall in 468.

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Since this invasion, Conímbriga started losing its importance, first by losing the Episcopal headquarters to the Roman Coimbra (Aeminium) that had a greater strategic position.

Since most of the inhabitants came from Conímbriga, they brought their name to the city of Aeminium, which was replaced in the 6th century. The remaining inhabitants founded Condeixa-a-Nova which was north of the Conímbriga ruins.

The ruins were maintained until the 20th century which was when they started excavation work: the important archaeological figure of Virgílio Correia excavated the most important part of the site, called the "Casa dos Repuxos" during the 1930s and 1940s, which we will learn more about later.

The excavations continued through the following decades, although I think that they have stopped now. Conímbriga covers 24 hectares and only 17% of it is avaliable to visit, but it is all worth seeing. The ruins opened to the public in 1983, although the museum was created in 1968.

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How to get here

Conímbriga has good access by car or by public transport. By car there are various signs that will tell you when you are near, but in general Portugal has a lot less sign posting, so you probably always need to have a map with you.

If you are going by public transport, from Coímbra there is a bus that leaves from the company Transdev near the train station. The bus makes quite a few stops in local towns before it arrives in Conímbriga, and not all of them go all the way to Conímbriga, they stop in Condeixa-a-Nova, so make sure you look at the bus timetables. In terms of the price, the bus is 2. 50 euros. I think that it is expensive, being only 10km away, but it is what it is.

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Hours and prices

Due to its proximity to Coímbra, Conímbriga has turned into a great stop for anyone who visits the main town, so it is open every day and the price is 4. 50 euro.

If you are an Erasmus student and you do not mind getting up early, the museum is free on the first Sunday of the month, but only in the morning from 10am until 14:00. Being so close, I would recommend you spend your day here and save money. In terms of normal hours, it is open from 10am until 19:00.

The museum and ruins of Conímbriga

Taking all of that into account, lets start discovering Conímbriga. Inside, there are two different things, the ruins and the museum.

Firstly I am going to discuss the museum. Little by little they are discovering different things that cannot be conserved in the fresh air, like the mosaic above for example. For this reason, they decided to create a museum emulating the look of a Roman house with the aim of keeping all the remains that they find inside of it.

The ojectives of the museum are not limited to the Roman period, they have also found different objects from other pre-historic time periods, like spear ends and other instruments.

On the Roman side, apart from this mosaic, they have preserved daily objects and Roman tombs that normally they wouldn't have been able to protect.

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And later, we have the ruins, after having passed the ticket office which offers entrance to the ruins once more. The first building that will intrigue you is called la "Casa dos Repuxos", The House of the Fountain, highlighting a type of fountain right in the middle of the room that strangely, can switch on if you drop some coins in.

Without a doubt, this building is the most beautiful in Conímbriga, it was an ancient place for shopping and after this, it was an aristocratic house. The first photo in this article shows the House of the Fountain.

Continuing on, we will pass the ruins of the walls, you will enter Conímbriga. On the right we will see the remains of an amphitheatre, an area to watch shows and spectacles. From here, we see the small "Condeixa-a-Velha" as it is very close and there is a path that joins both of the "Condeixas" with some villages that could've been an alternative or an addition to the town of Conímbriga.

On the other side, we have the House of Cantaber, occupying almost all of a part of the wall, it must have been a great nobleman to own this large house as it appears to be more like a palace. If we continue straight ahead, we will arrive at the Roman Forum, of which they have only conserved the ceiling and a couple of columns. It is interesting that they used the famous Pythagoras' Theorem to construct this place!

Near to there we have the thermal baths where the Romans went to relax. We have to go down a couple of stairs to see the ruins of the baths: they have been preserved quite well. In front, we can see a couple of trees and trees surrounding the entire perimetre of Conímbruga.

Lets return to the other side of the walls, passing by other Roman houses that are also quite beautiful and then we will arrive at the "Casa dos Esqueletos" where there are human remains inside.

Smaller than the other houses, this one also has beautiful mosaics. The house can be found on the outside part of the wall and so with this, we can see the entirety of Conímbriga. I would calculate that it would take between an hour and two hours to see all of it, but as usual, take that with a pinch of salt as there are people who spend all day here, and some just 20 minutes to see it all.

Without a doubt, Conímbriga is a must-see stop for whoever visits this Central region of Portugal, specifically for those who visit Coímbra. It is pure coincidence that it has all been preserved so well, and although I would like to see 100% of Conímbriga, this 17% is magnificent.

Visiting Coímbra without seeing Conímbriga seems like a huge error to me, and if you already like history and monuments, to have the opportunity to see something so much older than the Castilian and English people that lived in Portugal, this opportunity is amazing and unique and more centred around the Romans that left Braga and Lisboa.

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