At the beginning of this summer, I was contacted by friends at the Universidade de Coimbra in relation to their ‘Shaping Ecological Futures’ conference which was held across the 20th and 21st October this year.
They invited me to create a walk in response to the River Mondego for conference delegates. This was a delightful invitation for me, as I love creating sound walks and the River Mondego is also a neighbour of mine, here in Tábua, in central Portugal.
The walk was created and presented in English and Portuguese, through the Echoes sound application, as part of the conference proceedings and remains there for anyone who wishes, to experience in situ. You can also listen to the sounds of the walk remotely through the Echoes app or your browser.
Following the conference, I was surpised and delighted to discover that the walk had been shortlisted in the Sound Walk September awards, run by Walk Listen Create.
You can find the description of the walk below and a link to the walk itself on Echoes. Many thanks to the University of Coimbra – Vânia and Catarina in particular – for the invitation and help with Portuguese translation. Big thanks also to DGArtes Portugal for supporting the work.
Watery Encounters
This walk offers a series of sonic encounters with the Rio Mondego, which highlight the history, ecology and present positioning of the river. It also offers invitations to reflect on human relations with rivers more widely, including how we connect as ‘bodies of water’, the ways in which we meet and interact, different understandings of what (or who) a river is and how we can form more balanced and reciprocal relations with our watery friends.
The walk begins at the Arco da Traição entrance to the Jardim Botânico, in Coimbra and ends near the Pedro e Inês footbridge, on the Mondego River.
Accessibility: The route is step free or has step free options, but some of the paths are steep or uneven and may not be suitable for people with limited mobility. A transcript for the walk is available here.
The walk was created for the Shaping Ecological Futures conference, at the University of Coimbra in October 2026, and was supported by DGArtes, Portugal.
Listen to ‘Watery Encounters’ here
