It was high time we took another vacation, so we made plans to visit another part of Spain. A few of my students and friends highly suggested that where ever we plan to travel, we stay in a Parador. Paradores are government-owned buildings in Spain that have been made into 4 star luxury hotels. Many paradores were formerly castles and monasteries, but others are modern buildings. These places have affordable prices for hotel rooms--especially for young people. It was the first time I have ever seen a discount for people over 18 and under 60.
I cursed myself for buying train tickets that departed from Madrid at 8:45 in the morning, but we reached our train with little time to spare. The train ride takes about 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Salamanca is now a large modern city, but if you take a cab from the train station, you'll reach the historical area in a few minutes. Here's a picture of a rather interesting sculpture that greeted us upon exiting the Salamanca train station. It looks like a scary unicorn.
We went straight to our parador to check-in. Most of historical Salamanca has signs like this: red calligraphy on golden sandstone. Quite a nice touch. The parador itself was actually a modern building and not an old castle. Still, it was quite beautiful. Here are pictures of the main lobby and our room!
This last picture is our shower faucet. We thought it was worth pointing out because the knobs had specific temperatures you could set the water to (in Celsius, of course). I've never seen anything like it!
From our room, we had a great view of the city! The big building on the hill is the old and new cathedral.
The cathedral is pretty interesting-it's two cathedrals built into one another. The first one, the Cathedral Vieja (Old Cathedral) is more plan and was built in the 12th-13th centuries. In the 1500s, King Ferdinand V decided to add a new cathedral to the edifice in order to house more worshippers. The Cathedral Nueva was the built with a mixture of Gothic and Baroque architecture. When you walk inside of it, you can take some amazing pictures of the city.
Before we went to Salamanca, our students informed us that we had to find the astronaut that is sculpted on the entrance to the New Cathedral. Apparently, while constructing the New Cathedral, they wanted to have pieces commemorating more modern achievements. It doesn't quite fit in with the traditional saint portraits and decor, but it was still challenging to locate...kinda like a Where's Waldo for art and architecture. A spotted him after a few minutes.
After checking that off our list, we proceeded deeper into the city and found a building called Casa de las Conchas-literally, House of the Shells. A knight named Rodrigo Maldonado built the edifice in the 16th century. The shells are a symbol for the Order of Santiago, a Spanish military and religious order. The building is now a public library.
We proceeded farther north, where we found Salamanca's Plaza Mayor. It was built by King Felipe V as a sign of gratitude for the city's support during the War of Spanish Succession. At one point in history, it used to hold bullfights. It is very similar to Plaza Mayor in Madrid, except that the entire square was constructed with golden sandstone, which is said to look lovely at dusk. Unfortunately, it was quite a cloudy day and we weren't able to judge it for ourselves.
We saw this tower through the trees and knew it was something important. In fact, it was Torre de Clavero, a tower that is the remains of a palace from the 1400s.
Whenever we walked from our parador to the city, we would have to cross the Puente Romano. This is a Roman bridge that was built over the Tormes river in the 1st century AD. It's definitely the oldest site in the area. It's simply amazing to see such a conglomeration of artifacts from different centuries that makes Salamanca what it is today.
We had only been in the city for 10 hours and we had already accomplished a lot; however, there was still one major landmark we had yet to discover-the university entrance. This is one of the most famous aspects of Salamanca. It's the oldest university in Spain and one of the oldest universities in Europe (dating back to 1218!) When we entered the historic city, we did find university buildings, but we failed to find the entrance. The next morning, we headed to the front desk of our parador to discover where the entrance was. Their directions helped us to find the gate in no time.
When you visit Salamanca, this is the main attraction-specifically, the ornate entrance, which has a portrait of the Catholic monarchs. Our students informed us that we had to find the frog hidden in the entrance. There are many stories about this frog: some say that if you find the frog, you will pass all your exams, others say it brings good luck, etc. A was able to find the frog, sitting on the skull. Can you see it?
We then proceeded back to Madrid, elated with the items we accomplished! We had a wonderful trip, but we were happy to return home!
