University of Coimbra & Joanina Library

How to visit without losing your library slot

The University of Coimbra sits at the top of the old town in the Paço das Escolas courtyard, and the building everyone comes for is the Biblioteca Joanina — a three-room baroque library built between 1717 and 1728 under King João V, its shelves lacquered in gilded, painted exotic woods. The catch is access. The library’s Noble Floor only takes a small group on a fixed timed slot, roughly every 20 minutes, and your ticket carries a set time. You show it at the Academic Prison entrance about five minutes before, and there’s no moving to a later slot if you’re late — so once you have your time, treat it as the fixed point and arrange everything else around it.

Buy the full ticket online before you go and choose your library slot at checkout. The full ticket — about €13.50 (£11.50) for adults — covers the Joanina, the Royal Palace of the Alcáçova, the São Miguel Chapel and the prison cells beneath the library, which is the combination worth having. There’s a cheaper ticket that leaves the library out; skip that one, because the gilded reading room is the whole reason to climb the hill. In summer the slots genuinely sell out hours ahead, so don’t leave it until you’re standing at the kiosk.

The bats, the time you actually get, and is it worth it?

Expect to be inside the Noble Floor for only 10 to 15 minutes — photography is banned in there, so it’s eyes rather than camera. The famous detail is true: a colony of bats lives behind the bookcases and eats the insects that would otherwise chew the 18th-century books, which is why staff drape the tables in leather cloths each night and clean up after them each morning. You won’t see them (they’re nocturnal), but it explains the smell of old leather and the spotless tables. Allow 1.5 to 2 hours for the whole Paço das Escolas, since the same ticket covers the palace, the chapel and the prison, and the 17th-century clock tower (a separate climb of around 180 steps) is worth it for the view over the terracotta roofs and the Mondego.

This is the one paid sight in Coimbra to book properly. The library is small and your time in it is short, but it’s one of the most beautiful rooms in Portugal and the wider campus — a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2013 — earns the entry on its own. Just respect the slot: more visitors are turned away for missing their library time than for any other reason.