University of Coimbra - UNESCO World Heritage Site

And today my UNESCO World Heritage Journey is coming to you from the University of Coimbra in central Portugal. Now the University of Coimbra is the oldest university in Portugal and also one of the oldest in the world. It was originally founded in 1290 in Lisbon and it moved here in the 16th century. But it's not architecture that we're here to see today because although the buildings are beautiful it's actually what's inside the buildings it's interesting because this was the only university in Portugal when it was at the height of its power and one of the most powerful nations on the planet. So we've just come from the main library upstairs here and although we weren't allowed to film it's one of the most amazing and beautiful libraries I have ever seen. It's got huge high ceilings and the walls are two meters thick. They thought of everything. There's a special type of wood to keep the humidity consistent and there's even a colony of bats to stop bugs from eating the paper. And the decoration is really beautiful as well because it was built in the 18th century at a time when worldwide influences were everywhere. There's Brazilian gold and Chinese lacquer art on some of the bookshelves and it's just so beautiful to see. I'm really glad we came here. The physics laboratory of the university and it's not used anymore for classes but what it does have is a huge collection of hundreds and hundreds of objects from the renaissance from an era when physics was practical not theoretical like it is these days. So in addition to the physics laboratory here they've also got a natural history laboratory too and this has samples and collections of all sorts of animals from all over the world. Behind me you can see a fin whale which is the second largest whale in the world behind only the blue whale of course. But there's rooms and rooms here just full of stuffed animals and skeletons and collections not just animals we've got corals and shells and all sorts of things it's really really interesting. So it's been an interesting day here in Coimbra. I feel like we've we've learned a fair bit but it's a very different world heritage site here because it's we're not looking at architecture and we're not looking at art we're we're evaluating I suppose the significance of this place on the world's heritage which ultimately is what this is all about. So yeah but there's plenty to think about as well which I quite like. So thank you very much for watching don't forget to like and subscribe and I'll see you at the next world heritage site.