We arrived in Salamanca to be greated by sunny clear blue skies, and frost and ice wherever there is shade.. It was funny looking at three temperature displays that we could see in the square we are staying in, they varied from -4 to 0 to 2 degrees...obviously it depended whether they were in the sunlight or shade...TIP: when walking around, keep to the sunny bits.
As ususal Lesley found us some great accommodation right in the middle of the old town, we are only minutes from everything!!
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| Hotel Vega Room Mate |
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| Our Room |
As soon as we were checked in, we were off exploring...thank goodness we hhave purchased winter coats, scarves, and gloves recently.....there was still light snow lying around in some shady areas!
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| Stop Smiling Lesley, That's Snow!!! |
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| Kids Smashing Ice In The Fountain |
A whole one minute away from our hotel is the fantastic and very impressive Plaza Mayor
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| Views Around Plaza Mayor |
Salamanca is known as the "Golden City" due to the way the sun lights up allof the grand buildings that are made from local sandstone.....it really does look beautiful.
The big surprise here is the size of the cathedral and churches, and the quantity of churches....the architectural and detail applied to all of these buildings is just fantastic to see.
It sounds funny when you hear things like the Old Cathedral (built between the 12th and 14th centuries), and then the New Cathedral (built between the 16th and 18th centuries)....gees, in Australia New means built in the last 10 years!!!!!!!
These buildings are incredible to see, they are so big, yet the detail found on statues and scultures on the walls, roof lines etc. is so accurate, detailed, and just amazing to see.
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| The Magnificent Cathedrals (Old and New) |
Looking around Plaza de Anaya at the other buildings lining the plaza,, you are faced with more magnificent and impressive architecture...all reflecting the sun and giving that golden glow.
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| Other Buildings In Plaza de Anaya |
Everywhere you walk thoughout the old town you are viewing a church, there are so many, it is a bit hard to understand why they needed this many.....but it does add to the whole gandeur that is Salamanca.
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| Iglesia de San Martin |
As usual, after a bit of exploring, we started to look for somewhere to eat. We found a great little bar called La Mariseca, apparently it had only opened a couple of days ago, and was proving to be very popular.
We found a table, ordered a plate of the delicious Iberian Ham, some local red wine and settled in for a couple of hours. It did not take long befoe we got talking to a young guy, Guido, sat next to us...a young Italian Engineer living/working in Madrid and visiting Salamanca for the day. We were really impressed with his languages...he could speak Italian (of course), English, French, Spanish, and Arabic...and I thought I was doing well with "Dos vino tinto per favor"...well ordering red wine is important!!!
It was not long before other tables started to get involved in talking with us...we had four older Spanish people on the table on our other side joining in, who loved the fact that we were from Australia and were loving Spain, they did not speak English, so Guido became the translator for everyone. As the lunch got longer and longer they were recommending wines and dishes for us to try....we had a great time!
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| La Mariseca |
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| Cutting Iberian Ham |
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| Iberian Ham and Red Wine |
To say that Iberian Ham is popular around here would be an understatement. Just down the road from the bar they had set up a series of tents forr Iberian Ham tasting.....the line of people waiting for their turn to get a small tasting plate was far too long for us to be bothered with, but they did seem to be enjoying the ham.
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| Iberian Ham Tasting |
After our marathon lunch, we went back to our room for a while...you have to get prepared for the evening meal...it is a big thing here!!!
We settled on a bar/restaurant on the edge of Plaza Mayor called Abadia Plaza. To our surprise the bar was full of pensioners, every table had groups of people in their 70s and 80s...no joke! We have never seen so many fur coats in one place!!!!!
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| Plaza Mayor At Night |
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| Abadia Plaza |
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| We Dragged Down The Average Age |
We started off with drinks and some free plates of nibbles. Again, we got talking to people around us, it is so easy the people are so friendly in Spain!!! Our communication consisted of my terribly basic Spanish (good for ordering meals), a lot of sign language, and using the sentence "Australia" and pointing at oursleves...that last one gets heaps of brownie points, they love the fact that you have travelled all the way from Australia to their city. After helping a few of the ladies move chairs around so they could sit in their groups we would keep getting smiles and waves all night. Quite a few of them came up to us when they left and shook our hands and smiled while saying what we believed to be nice things in Spanish....love these people!!!
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