Roman Ruins of Conímbriga

Conímbriga is a true jewel of the Roman world. A place that we can not miss on our journey to Santiago. The living testimony of the fascinating power of History and the enduring influences on the national cultural legacy.

Conímbriga is a true jewel of the Roman world. A place that we can not miss on our journey to Santiago. The living testimony of the fascinating power of History and the enduring influences on the national cultural legacy.

Inhabited since the Neolithic, Conímbriga was a castle when the Romans arrived here in 138 BC and took over the Oppidum. In the time of the Emperor Augustus, the Forum and the baths were the first buildings to be built. The water came from a place known today as Mãe-de-Água de Alcabideque and through an aqueduct which is still visible today. The city was walled, a basilica was built and also many places of worship. The head of Augustus and his feet in strap sandals, found near the temple are the proof of this.

When Conímbriga was given the statute of a township, probably between 70 and 80 AD, a new Forum was built. Its Portico and the new square populated with magnificent statues proved the power its inhabitants.

The streets and the houses with its fresh and perfumed patios, the floors paved with polychromatic mosaics and the smell coming from the baths, lead us to imagine a pompous, and almost “imperial” Conímbriga.

In Condeixa nature was generous. A walk through the Mata da Bufarda proves this. It is a wonderful world were the Oak, the scarlet oak and the cork tree mark the south. We are enchanted by the discovery of small bright coloured flowers: the lily, the thistle, the pennyroyal, the hyacinth, and the orchids.

Very near Conímbriga, the Canhão do Rio de Mouros, shows us thousands of years of work of the water over the limestone: at the bottom of its bed and on the margins, grottoes and caves, wild rose bushes, and lilies surprise us.