Week 4 – Tuesday 22nd and Wednesday 23rd July – Salamanca

Drive, Drive…Drive, Drive…. About 4 and a half hours from Santiago DC to Salamanca along mainly motorways, so it’s very easy driving with any speed feeling almost pedestrian as the roads are so smooth and wide, with only the gentlest of corners and there was virtually no traffic on the road.

The hotel we are staying at in Salamanca is also very nice and after a bit of a lull across the Costa Verde, we are now back into the best that Spain has to offer in terms of beautiful villages and towns to visit.

I have again got a bit behind with our blog and am now writing this in the square in Segovia (50ks north of Madrid) enjoying a beer, while Anne has a Blanco (white wine - which we have found to be much better than the last time we were here).

Salamanca is a university town, and is popular with international students to visit for summer schools. We have run across heaps of American College kids in the town and the general population is all very young and trendy. Salamanca also has the most impressive square in Spain – it was the set for the movie Vantage Point, which we saw on the plane on the way over – a cathedral and various other impressive buildings and monuments. Like so many of these European Cities, the historic centre is a pedestrian precinct with restaurants set up on every thoroughfare, terrace or square available.

The square is used for hosting events, bull fights etc and is surrounded on all sides by a 4 storey building which houses apartments, offices and a hotel. On one side, is the city hall, with large balcony adorned with various flags of the region, country and continent. Ground level contains fashionable shops, restaurants and bars, which are set back under arched pillars. Restaurants tables and umbrellas are set out on all four sides, the different table cloths and chairs depicting different restaurants. The open central area has a number of stone bench seats and decorative street lamps.

At night in Salamanca we went into the square to have a drink and people watch. A medieval band (in pantaloons, tights and puffy velvet jackets) played at one of the restaurants on both nights, which drew a large crowd of onlookers. At 10pm each night, all the lights in the square are turned on, on the buildings around the square to create a quite magical effect. It was obvious that most of the people in the square are tourists by the gasps of amazement that occur when the lights are turned on.

The buildings in the town are amazing and at every turn you come across buildings that take your breath away. We went into the cathedral, which was beautifully decorated with frescos over all the ceilings and beautiful chapels. All the buildings are totally flood lit at night (no power crisis on here) and it was fun to take out a camera and tripod at night to photograph in a different light.

I don’t know why, but all the buildings that we have seen in central Spain are completely free of mould or dis-colouration due to pollution. My assumption is that the climate is so dry that the pollution doesn’t have anything to stick to the buildings with. I can’t justify this argument and it may well be wrong because this part of Spain suffers from very harsh winters (much to our surprise, but apparently worse than what you’re having), but because ALL the buildings are the same colour, it can’t be some massive restoration effort. After writing that (I’m proof reading the following day), Anne has spotted that one side of the cathedral is quite mouldy, so the mystery deepens regarding how all the other buildings are so pristine looking – maybe somebody ran amok with 30 seconds in the spring to give all the cities in Central Spain a spruce up prior to the tourist season.

We had a superb lunch in Salamanca on Wednesday and our overall impression of the town is that it is alive and buzzing, in an agreeable way, the same as Santiago DC was composed and relaxed – both really enjoyable, but totally different in their feel and pace of life.

We had booked 4 nights in Toledo at the end of our trip and had planned to commute to Madrid on two days to visit the Prada, Thyssen-Bornenmisza, the Palace and the rest of the central city. Anne came up with the brilliant idea of just commuting once and finding a hotel to stay in Madrid overnight. This is something that would have meant trapsing the steets a few years ago to find somewhere to rest our heads, but thanks to www.wotif.com, we were able to get a last minute cheap rate at a four star central city hotel, which we booked before we left the Salamanca Hotel and headed to Avilla and Segovia.