Queima das Fitas

Celebrating the end of graduation courses, symbolized by the ritual burning of the ribbons representing each faculty of the University of Coimbra (UC), it takes place at the second semester (starts on the first Friday of May at 00:00), being among the biggest student festivities in Europe.

The parade progresses down the hills of the Alta towards the Baixa (downtown Coimbra, near the river) with dozens of elaborately decorated floats, each in the color of their respective faculties, carrying placards with ironic criticisms alluding to certain teachers, the educational system, national events and leaders.

Such struggle took some time to heal, but the "Queima das Fitas" is now only contested by a small fringe of the more radical left-wing student movements.

Nowadays, the beer industry has become an important sponsor of Coimbra's Queima das Fitas, which has given still a wider projection to the festival, quite popular among young people from all around the country and even from Spain.

This growth in popularity has involved significant change to the festival, ever more professionalized, moving it a great distance away from its origins at the end of the 19th century.

In 1979 a "Traditional Queima" was put up by an almost clandestine organising committee, gathering students from most of the public faculties: Engineering, Medicine, Economics, Pharmacy, Letters, Science.

This team managed to frustrate the boycott efforts of left-wing students that opposed the celebration, and offered to the academy and the city the full traditional range of activities, that started with a Saturday to Sunday late night Serenade (starting at 00:01h), with traditional Coimbra Fado songs, in the courtyard of Porto's Cathedral.

The programme included the blessing of the students' briefcases, decorated with ribbons ("Fitas") of the colour of each faculty, a Charity Day where all revenue from the selling of small cardboard briefcases with poems (some original and cheerfully offered by poet Pedro Homem de Mello) was given to a charity institution, several balls, rallye-paper, Garraiada (mock-up bullfight with small calves) and, specially, a huge parade that attracted an assistance of more than 150,000 that blocked Porto's downtown for several hours, cheering the students and showing that the Queima had its place in the city's celebrations.