The Physics Department of the University of Coimbra is at the top of Coimbra Alta hill, leaning over the Mondego river. The view over the river, the botanic gardens and the old city is magnificent. The building was finnished in 1975 and has all teaching and research facilities of a modern department. It comprises various research labs, teaching labs, lectures rooms, library and workshops.

The library is one the most complete of the country, both due to the quantity and the quality of its collections (about 17 000 books plus 950 periodicals).

There are various rooms where the students can work, either in group or individually. Additionaly, many students prefer to study at the open spaces available around the building.

The students have free access to a computer room, where about 40 computers are available for working and comunicating. All computers are connected to the internet. Students can also plug-in their notebooks or connect to the campus wireless network eduroam.

There are three auditoriums in the building, used for teaching and conferencing. The major auditorium has 265 seats.

There are 19 laboratories used specifically for teaching experimental subjects.
Among them it is worth mentioning the following labs:

• Fundamental Experiments of Modern Physics
• Nuclear Physics
• Condensed Matter Physics
• Termodynamics
• Mechanics
• Electricity
• Physics Education
• Experimental Physics
• Biomedical Lab. BPI
• Optics and Photonics Lab. BPI

The experiments mounted in these labs give support to the teaching of specific subjects, but serve also to specific topics taught at the various courses of the Department of Physics.

The computer classes and like are taught on three rooms equiped with about 12 computers each.

There are several areas for experimental research, assigned to the four research centres of the Department of Physics. Addionally, there are areas ocuppied by the computer centre, namely the GRID computer node and farm "milipeia", the fastest computer in the country. The Physics Department's research covers many areas of the Physics and instrumentation.

The workshop of the LIP-Coimbra Lab (Laboratory for Instrumentation and Particle Physics) is very well equiped and is capable of execute mechanical works of high precision and complexity, both to the experimental groups of the Physics Department and to their collaborations. In particular its has been working to the main research international institutions, as for instance CERN, ESA or ESO. The workshop areas occupy more than 1000 m2.