Salamanca!

As promised, I'm starting to make individual posts about what I've been doing each day on my trip. I got into Madrid on Wednesday morning & we drove to Salamanca, which is a little more than 2 hours NW of Madrid. First, though, we stopped in Ávila for lunch. I personally wouldn't mind living in such a fortress.




There was of course a medieval cathedral across the street from the hotel. We are in Spain after all.



We joked we could walk to Portugal. Clearly, that would take awhile, although Lisboa is at the top of my list for places to travel to outside of Spain. Especially considering the two countries are neighbors!



Salamanca is a city of ~200,000 people in Spain, ~100,000 less than Cordoba so they're not too different size-wise. Regardless, I was surprised at how many people there were in the streets for a smaller-sized city, even during the daily siesta, the afternoon break where many businesses close. Still, in our current society, this leisurely time has become less common in daily life in Spain.



Salamanca's Plaza Mayor, the main plaza in the city, is a vibrant meeting place and hangout spot. It has a lot of restaurants (including a delicious ice cream shop which I later found out was a favorite of Franco when he was live, too. Oops?) & becomes very beautiful/comes alive at night as well.





The next day, we visited the New Cathedral of Salamanca. A name which is misleading considering it was built in the 16th century.



Detail above the door.



More detail outside. The bull is emblematic of Salamanca's history of the Spanish tradition of bullfighting & the lion is an iconic symbol of Castilla y León, the Comunidad Autónoma where Salamanca is located.




Inside the cathedral, like several we've visited, it was difficult to take pictures which would turn out well, considering how dark it is. Even with flash. Something I was able to capture, though, were the arches inside. With their pointed arches & ribbed vault, they're good examples of Gothic archeitecture. The geometrics of the celing, though, personally reminded me of the archeitecture of Al-Andalus . Because Muslims do not believe in depicting the Prophet as a human figure, they used complex geometric shapes to inspire the wonder of math & science. The design struck me as very consciously mathematic/geometric in the same way.








Other arches & columns, though, definitely had more of a Romanesque flair.




The Cathedral had different stories from the life of Christ & his disciples as well as the Old Testament painted on the walls. I couldn't understand very much of them, since they were written in an older dialect of Spanish, but it seemed like this one was relating an apostle healing the sick.




The altar was decorated in brilliant gold & each pannel tells part of the story of Christ. It ends with his descent to heaven with the angels in the larger, rounded part above.



There were several black pannels on the floor with numbers written on them. We were told they corresponded to graves that had been found below. A cemetary must have existed at some point in history in that location.

Then, we visited the University of Salamanca. It's the 4th oldest continuously operating university in Europe & since it has ~30,000 students, they make up a very sizeable population of the city. It's hard to see in this picture, but there's a frog included in the facade & there are several legends around it. One is that if one spots it, they will be married within as year. Another is that if one fails to see it, they will consequently fail in their studies. Regardless, of whether these legends are true or not, the frog has become a mascot of sorts at the university.




A typical classroom at the University. Not too shabby considering how the university was established in 1134.




When we went out, it was apparent just how many students there are in Salamanca. Lucky for us, a lot of bars will have drink deals to try attract their business. We came across these friendly folks whose sign made me smile.




Hopefully it won't take me nearly as long to put together entries for all our other days of the trip. At the moment, we're in Barcelona. Today, we saw Guell Park & the la Sagrada Familia cathedral, which were both absolutely breathtaking in completely unconventional ways. Off to Cordoba at the end of the weekend!