Salamanca, a real jewel

The city of Salamanca is one the real jewels of Spain. It features a nicely walkable old town, an absolutely stunning central plaza, and a vibrant culture courtesy of one of Europe's oldest universities.

I arrived here in early afternoon, and fairly quickly found what was to be the cheapest accomodations I stayed at: for 12 (twelve) euro, a single bedroom with shared bath. I had meals that cost more than this several times in my travels.

Along the way, I caught a glimpse of the Plaza Mayor.
It's an imperfect panorama stitch job, but you get to see three sides of it.


This is a wonderful place to have a nice (if a bit overpriced) drink or meal, and just watch life unfold. The sandstone from which most of Salamanca is built is really neat stuff, and changes color as the day progresses.

There's also a bull on the flagpole.


I spent hours walking the city, drinking in the architecture and the colors. I was reminded in some ways of Bath in England, which is almost all made of limestone in a somewhat similar color.



I also paid a brief visit into one of the cathedrals in town (there are actually several large churches, and I could never quite get straight which one was which).



One evening I was watching the sunset near one of the cathedrals when I witnessed a really cool phenomenon. As you can see, many buildings have small spires all over their tops. In the evening, flocks of heron (or other long-legged waterfowl, I'm not sure what) would circle about, still riding available thermals, and eventually settle down in various places on the roofs and spires of the buildings. By the time the show was done, it seemed like every spire had grown a bit longer, and a careful look might have been needed to see that the bird on top was not actually part of the building.

I didn't have the camera along when this happened. Ah well.

As previously mentioned, Salamanca is the site of one of Europe's oldest universities, founded in 1218. The original building housing the university is now a museum, and is home to some nice tilework.


The only other thing of note I went to (there are a wealth of convents and monasteries that are open in some degree or other, into which I did not go) was the Museo Casa Lis, home to a fascinating collection of Art Noveau and Art Deco work. No pictures from the inside (not allowed...), but even the outside merited a few snaps.


While I was in Salamanca, I undertook a daytrip to Ciudad Rodrigo.

Zaragoza

I was a bit disappointed by my visit to Zaragoza. Perhaps I had expected more. Perhaps I was suffering from homesickness (which I was, after six weeks on the road). In any event, I felt like it wasn't all I had thought it might be. It's largely a fairly modern city, not much of that narrow old-Europe feel to it.

Zaragoza does have a Cathedral, but I wasn't really overly impressed by it. Perhaps the churches seen in previous places just left me with that feeling.


It does have a nice palace, with some nice mudejar touches, including some pretty cool ceilings.





There is also remains of the old Roman Forum (in a museum underground, similar to something I saw in Barcelona), and a fairly well-kept Roman theatre.

I did have a nice Italian meal on my last night in Zaragoza. The next morning, I caught a series of trains that left me in Salamanca (again without accomodation) in the early afternoon.

Friendly advice to people trying to make train reservations in Spain: the Renfe staff seem to be pretty bad at the idea of connecting trains. I inquired about travel from Zaragoza to Salamanca, and was advised everything was fully booked. In spite of this, I was able to travel between the two cities in about 5 1/2 hours: train to Madrid (plenty of seats), subway between Madrid-Atocha and Madrid-Chamartin, and train from Madrid to Salamanca (again, plenty of seats).

More friendly advice for the Renfe folks: train stations can be noisy, and communicating with your staff can be difficult if your native language is not Spanish. I had to call Renfe reservations (and speak with an English-speaker) to discover exactly what the issues were in my attempted travel plans.

A taste of Madrid, and a walk in the countryside

I arrived in Madrid in the late afternoon, and discovered that I had plenty of time to spend a few hours at the Museo del Prado, which is basically the national gallery of Spain, and a fairly important world museum. It's not on the same scale as museums like the Louvre, the British Museum, or the Metropolitan, but it's got some fairly important works, for example Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights. I spent two hours (admission free, it was Sunday!) looking at about 1/2 the collection.

In my wanderings between the hotel and the museum, I encountered a real mix of, umm, attractions in the area I was staying. The hotel was located between the Gran Via and the Puerta del Sol, along with quite a few other hotels, some of quite high quality. The strangest juxtaposition was that, on a single short street, there were 4- and 5-star hotels, sex shops, and even prostitutes holding the walls up. Welcome to Madrid, mind your wallet. (To be fair, Lonely Planet did actually opine about this particular stretch of road, and issue general warnings about pickpockets and other hazards of city street (low-)life.)

The next day being Monday, my plan was to find a dayhike in the hills north of Madrid (about 1 hour by "commuter rail") starting in the village of Cercedilla. The hills here aren't particularly high here (maybe topping out at 2200 meters), but I was looking for a nice 4-6 hours of dayhike, without necessarily bagging any peaks. This I found...

What a load of bull!

BTW, Cercedilla has a nice train station.



After the hike, I returned to town, got my bags, and headed for a train to Zaragoza.
(Don't worry, there's more Madrid later.)

Córdoba

Córdoba is an ancient city, and was the largest and most important city in Spain during the Muslim conquest.

It now has a much smaller feel, being overshadowed (since the days of the Spanish Empire) by Sevilla, which benefitted from controlling trade with the Americas. After Sevilla, Córdoba was a small town.

I arrived early in the afternoon on a very hot day (my thermometer registered 105F in the shade at about 5PM), without accomodation. A short bus ride from the train station into a part of town known to be populated with "hostals", as inns/pensions are known procured a room on the top floor of a building, without AC, but with a fan. Let's say the room didn't get used much until late that evening.
Entry to the hostal


Street views


Like Sevilla, Córdoba has a mosque that was converted to a church, called the Mezquita. It's really a bit funky inside, because of what the Christians did in the conversion process. Some argued (apparently even in the historic times when some of the changes were made) that they were ruining something very cool. Unfortunately, the pictures don't really do it justice.


Your humble scribe





Córdoba also has an Alcázar, but it's not nearly the same thing that the one in Sevilla is. It's a much plainer Gothic structure, not nearly as large, but also populated with some Roman mosaics, and some nice gardens.





The one evening I spent in Córdoba I shot some street scenes, and visited in on a free concert in a city square near the Mezquita (sadly, fairly bland Spanish pop music sung by vaguely pretty women over recorded music).

The next afternoon I boarded another high-speed AVE train, and was whisked to Madrid.