Northern Spain Chapter 14 - Salamanca
Mar. 17 By Eric
We had heard a lot of good things about Salamanca and especially its pretty Plaza Mayor (main square). We had been anxious to see it since we were in France. So we had high hopes when we rode out of Alba de Tormes on a gorgeous day.
We had saved a lot of money by camping in Alba de Tormes and cooking our own food. But we got a little carried away. We skipped breakfast. After the tour of St. Theresa's sepulcher and a relatively easy 25km ride to Salamanca, we were very hungry.
Instead of just sitting down to a big meal like we should have, we decided to find a place to stay first. After about 45 minutes of riding around looking for addresses, we had found four different hostels and all of them were full. Then when we rod
e into the famous Plaza Mayor, we discovered it was under "obras." Huge scaffoldings covered one half of the plaza's buildings.
Now we were both in foul moods. We made a vow when we got married "to love each other most when we were least lovable." The vow got a lot of use that afternoon.
In the end we found an excellent place that was probably worth what we paid, but more than we had wanted to pay. Once we ate we felt a lot better and the next day we started discovering Salamanca.
The town has about 130,000 people when the students are in school. Only 70,000 when they are not. It is listed as a U.N. World Heritage Site, like Luang Prabang in Laos and the Taj Mahal. Like Luang Prabang, Salamanca has an amazing number of historic sites. Every corner, it seems, has a 700-year-old church or university building. (The University of Salamanca is one of the three oldest in Europe).
Everything is centere
d around the Plaza Mayor. Many old towns in Spain have one these. It's sort of like a large courtyard, about 100 meters to a side. The buildings surrounding it are all really just one building three or four stories high with lots of windows and balconies facing into the square. Inside the square itself is almost nothing except a brick ground, a few benches, tourists and lots of tables from the cafes located in the first floor of the buildings.
What makes a plaza so special is the architecture of the buildings that surround it and the archway entrances and exits. It feels good to walk around the plaza or sit and have a cup of coffee on a sunny day. That's all there is to do in a plaza but it shouldn't be underestimated.
When we walked through the Plaza Mayor we saw groups of tourists standing around trying to figure out what to do. We saw small groups of students sitting or lying on the brick ground, maybe one of them playing a guitar. Mostly though we saw Salamancans out for a stroll. Strolling is a big deal in Spain, especially in Salamanca. Get your dog and your granddaughter (or grandfather) and just promenade around town. We saw lots of old people, blind people, people with little babies in strollers. Just about everyone is out on the streets. On Sunday afternoons the pla
za and the main walking streets were jammed with as many people as you'd expect to see in New York City's Times Square on New Year's Eve.
The funny thing was, everything was closed except bars, restaurants, and souvenir stores. We wanted to develop some film but every camera store, and Salamanca has lots of them, was closed. So was every bookstore or stationery store, etc. In America, I believe, one of those stores owners would have realized what a golden opportunity it was to be the only one open on Sunday with all those people walking past and all the competition closed. It was nice to see that in Spain, time off is more important than profits.
We liked the town so much that on our first full day there we signed up for a week long "Spanish for Foreigners" class.
Next: Spanish language school in Salamanca
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