Salamanca
Last weekend was a "puente" or long weekend, thanks to September 8 being a holiday (I'm still not sure what for). Marion and I decided to visit Salamanca. It's a city of a similar size to Oviedo, about 225,000. It's about 200km from Madrid and 313km from Oviedo. It's famous for being a "university town" and having two cathedrals.
On Friday evening we drove down, via a BlaBlaCar trip with a driver named Luis. And also his girlfriend and a random other passenger, as it turns out. We stayed at a hostel in the centre of town which worked out pretty well. It's been a long time since I stayed in a hostel! Breakfast included, and only 5 beds in our room. The other three were a group of friends from Zaragoza which was good, better than 3 randoms. The noise wasn't too bad.
Friday night we headed out to Calle Van Dyck, a street famous for its tapas/pinchos (I can't keep track of the difference, frankly). We met up with two other auxiliares who had come to Salamanca for the weekend as well, from somewhere down near Seville. We went to three different places. They were great, much better than in Oviedo, just in terms of being able to order something small and move on to the next place. Oviedo doesn't seem as well set up for that. I had a really nice one with eggplant, blueberry, French cheese and fried onion bits on top. Delicious. Around 1am Marion and I set off to find somewhere to have a dance, which we did. Oblig part of student nightlife I guess.
We spent the rest of the weekend pretty much walking around looking at stuff, and didn't end up going dancing again. Some highlights:
The stunning Plaza Mayor - one of the most beautiful public squares in Spain. It was finished in 1755. Its style is Baroque - notably different to many of the other monuments which are 2 or more centuries older.
Entrance to the Convent of San Esteban - we didn't go inside, but this remained the most impressive facade I saw during the whole weekend. It was made about 1590. The style is called Plateresque, which was apparently exclusive to Spain, between Gothic and Renaissance.
Marion and I in front of the Roman bridge. This was built in the 1st century, but underwent reconstruction after being damaged in 17th century floods. It's an important part of the Roman Silver Route.
from totally spain:
When the Romans came to Spain, and especially during the reigns of the emperors Trajan and Hadrian, they built a roadway; a grand access route, from the city of Seville to the seaport of Gijon. The road crossed through the fine Autonomous Communities of Andalusia, Extremadura, Castilla y León and Asturias. Goods, troops, traders and travellers moved in continuous transit along this trail, which favoured the spreading of Roman culture, its language and way of life, at the same time as facilitating the control of the territory that the administration of the Roman Empire required.
Interior of the "old" Cathedral. Built in the 12-14th century, Romanesque/Gothic style.
In the 16th century, they decided they needed a new cathedral. The Gothic style was for buildings with much more natural light. Happily they decided to retain the old cathedral rather than demolish it and so they share a wall, and are pretty much one building, in two styles. The new cathedral was built 16th and 18th centuries in two styles, late Gothic and Baroque.
New Cathedral - more on the ceiling
Night view
Finally the university. It has another impressive facade, with a frog hidden in the designs. It supposedly means you will pass your exams if you can find the frog. Every day there were dozens of people hanging out in front of this trying to find the frog.
The building itself is not as ornately impressive as others, but it's pretty amazing to walk around the fourth oldest university in Europe and think about being a student 500 years ago. It's surprisingly small in some ways, but I'm sure you could pack a good few 100 people in each room.
Also, in one corner there are some faded wall paintings of saints, which were apparently put there in the 16th century to stop people pissing in the corner.... really.
University courtyard
Interior of the old library
View of the city from the towers of the Cathedral.
Other places that I liked that didn't lend themselves to photography:
* Casa Lis, or Museo de Art Noveau y Art Déco. This is a beautiful building with lots of lead lighting, including an amazing interior ceiling. Sadly no photos allowed. The items on exhibit range from jewellry and fans to dolls and a small collection of furniture. This was more like an "enthusiasts museum" (like the train museum in Gijón) which came into existence when someone donated a large personal collection to the city. Nonetheless I enjoyed it and it's certainly something different to the rest of Salamanca.
* Monumenta Salmanticae - Centro de interpretación del patrimonio arquitectónico y urbano de Salamanca - an old church converted into a small museum about the architecture of Salamanca's buildings and its winning recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There was a a model layout of the town with a lights/audio show that briefly described which parts of the town were built at which points in history. Apart from that there were touch screen displays which let you look up each famous building around town and read a brief history of it from an architectural perspective. I really liked this and thought it was a good overview/intro to the city for someone who didn't have any starting point for it.
* We also spent some time visiting the General Archive of the Spanish Civil War, although as the name "archive" rather than "museum" suggests, it was lacking a lot of context and was mostly just displaying interesting documents, photos, propaganda etc.
Finally back to food... we had nice meals at Cafe Mandala and El Laurel. El Laurel is exclusively vego, and they were almost completely booked out all weekend - we had to take a 1:30 booking for Monday to even get a table. I had a "tasting plate" for €15,75 which included a drink, bread and dessert. It was a good pick - a big plate with small amounts of about five different dishes. However even though Cafe Mandala wasn't exclusively veg, I think I prefer it. At least half the menu was veg, and it all looked really fresh and colourful, and the atmosphere was friendly and lively. Really liked it there.
All photos
So Salamanca: 👍
On Friday evening we drove down, via a BlaBlaCar trip with a driver named Luis. And also his girlfriend and a random other passenger, as it turns out. We stayed at a hostel in the centre of town which worked out pretty well. It's been a long time since I stayed in a hostel! Breakfast included, and only 5 beds in our room. The other three were a group of friends from Zaragoza which was good, better than 3 randoms. The noise wasn't too bad.
Friday night we headed out to Calle Van Dyck, a street famous for its tapas/pinchos (I can't keep track of the difference, frankly). We met up with two other auxiliares who had come to Salamanca for the weekend as well, from somewhere down near Seville. We went to three different places. They were great, much better than in Oviedo, just in terms of being able to order something small and move on to the next place. Oviedo doesn't seem as well set up for that. I had a really nice one with eggplant, blueberry, French cheese and fried onion bits on top. Delicious. Around 1am Marion and I set off to find somewhere to have a dance, which we did. Oblig part of student nightlife I guess.
We spent the rest of the weekend pretty much walking around looking at stuff, and didn't end up going dancing again. Some highlights:
The stunning Plaza Mayor - one of the most beautiful public squares in Spain. It was finished in 1755. Its style is Baroque - notably different to many of the other monuments which are 2 or more centuries older.
Entrance to the Convent of San Esteban - we didn't go inside, but this remained the most impressive facade I saw during the whole weekend. It was made about 1590. The style is called Plateresque, which was apparently exclusive to Spain, between Gothic and Renaissance.
Marion and I in front of the Roman bridge. This was built in the 1st century, but underwent reconstruction after being damaged in 17th century floods. It's an important part of the Roman Silver Route.
from totally spain:
When the Romans came to Spain, and especially during the reigns of the emperors Trajan and Hadrian, they built a roadway; a grand access route, from the city of Seville to the seaport of Gijon. The road crossed through the fine Autonomous Communities of Andalusia, Extremadura, Castilla y León and Asturias. Goods, troops, traders and travellers moved in continuous transit along this trail, which favoured the spreading of Roman culture, its language and way of life, at the same time as facilitating the control of the territory that the administration of the Roman Empire required.
Interior of the "old" Cathedral. Built in the 12-14th century, Romanesque/Gothic style.
In the 16th century, they decided they needed a new cathedral. The Gothic style was for buildings with much more natural light. Happily they decided to retain the old cathedral rather than demolish it and so they share a wall, and are pretty much one building, in two styles. The new cathedral was built 16th and 18th centuries in two styles, late Gothic and Baroque.
New Cathedral - more on the ceiling
Night view
Finally the university. It has another impressive facade, with a frog hidden in the designs. It supposedly means you will pass your exams if you can find the frog. Every day there were dozens of people hanging out in front of this trying to find the frog.
The building itself is not as ornately impressive as others, but it's pretty amazing to walk around the fourth oldest university in Europe and think about being a student 500 years ago. It's surprisingly small in some ways, but I'm sure you could pack a good few 100 people in each room.
Also, in one corner there are some faded wall paintings of saints, which were apparently put there in the 16th century to stop people pissing in the corner.... really.
University courtyard
Interior of the old library
View of the city from the towers of the Cathedral.
Other places that I liked that didn't lend themselves to photography:
* Casa Lis, or Museo de Art Noveau y Art Déco. This is a beautiful building with lots of lead lighting, including an amazing interior ceiling. Sadly no photos allowed. The items on exhibit range from jewellry and fans to dolls and a small collection of furniture. This was more like an "enthusiasts museum" (like the train museum in Gijón) which came into existence when someone donated a large personal collection to the city. Nonetheless I enjoyed it and it's certainly something different to the rest of Salamanca.
* Monumenta Salmanticae - Centro de interpretación del patrimonio arquitectónico y urbano de Salamanca - an old church converted into a small museum about the architecture of Salamanca's buildings and its winning recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There was a a model layout of the town with a lights/audio show that briefly described which parts of the town were built at which points in history. Apart from that there were touch screen displays which let you look up each famous building around town and read a brief history of it from an architectural perspective. I really liked this and thought it was a good overview/intro to the city for someone who didn't have any starting point for it.
* We also spent some time visiting the General Archive of the Spanish Civil War, although as the name "archive" rather than "museum" suggests, it was lacking a lot of context and was mostly just displaying interesting documents, photos, propaganda etc.
Finally back to food... we had nice meals at Cafe Mandala and El Laurel. El Laurel is exclusively vego, and they were almost completely booked out all weekend - we had to take a 1:30 booking for Monday to even get a table. I had a "tasting plate" for €15,75 which included a drink, bread and dessert. It was a good pick - a big plate with small amounts of about five different dishes. However even though Cafe Mandala wasn't exclusively veg, I think I prefer it. At least half the menu was veg, and it all looked really fresh and colourful, and the atmosphere was friendly and lively. Really liked it there.
All photos
So Salamanca: 👍