Day 1 + 2 - Salamanca

In a high school Spanish class, Sarah was given an assignment to do a report on a city in Spain. After telling Señora Rainbow that she wasn't sure what city to choose, the teacher promptly responded, "You should do Salamanca."

What made this stop even more exciting for us was that we were connected with a friend of a friend who was living in the city as a missionary. We decided to take advantage of the cheap lodging and stay 2 nights while taking our time with the beautiful city.

Looking down the old Roman bridge towards the city.

The clouds and lighting helped us get some nice picture.

We also found this city very tranquil and lacking the busyness that Sevilla tends to have.

Nice view of the Old and New Cathedrals.

Another great photo by Alyssa

Tranquil setting within the city

Convento de San Esteban

Inside the Cathedral

ICE CREAM!!

ASTRONAUT?!?!
(added in 1992 during restoration work to represent the 20th century)
During one of the short periods of rain we ran across this little gem in the middle of a plaza.
Sarah played a game with kitties and puppies and I played Street Fighter.
The 3D is pretty dang cool.

Sarah makes me pose once in awhile.

We found Plaza Mayor in the heart of the city. There was a whole lot going on.
A book fair, a concert, and a wedding. We found a pretty decent Mexican food place nearby to eat some tacos and burritos. Almost....but not quite the same.

Sarah tried to snap some shots of the couple as they were being blasted by confetti and rice.

We talked with this guy to find out how to get in the tower.
Unfortunately it has been closed for years.

The church of La Clerica, next door to La Casa de las Conchas (shells).

Salamanca is most famous for its university. It was founded in 1218 and is the oldest and most important in Spain. Christopher Columbus lectured there on his discoveries. Hernán Cortés took classes there (but didn't finish). Today there are about 36,000 students (2,000 foreign).

Within the carvings of the facade of the university there are lots of things to notice, but the most important to notice is a little frog. It is said that the students who find it themselves will do well in their exams. I didn't get close enough with the camera but in the middle of the picture, on the left side of the pillar, there is one of three skulls and on top of the skull you can find a little frog.
You can see a close up picture HERE.

Our hosts apartment couldn't have been in a better location. We were right on the edge of everything we needed to see. We were in the apartment of those two windows sticking up out of the top of this building. The roof was a little low in some areas (not just for me) but it was a great first couple nights of our trip. Our host really could not have been more hospitable.

So that is Salamanca. We feel fortunate to have experienced it in the way we did.
I'll leave you with the view of the Roman Bridge from the window.

Next up: Santiago de Compostela!

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Day 1 (first stop) - Cáceres

Well finally, here it is. The first post of our long 10 day trip through the North of Spain. I am still not done editing all the pictures but I´ll post them little by little. We have been relaxing at home, recovering from the trip. We bought a small inflatable pool for the roof and had some bbq with the neighbors. But also we have been getting ready for our guests this week. My sister and brother-in-law come tomorrow! Then Sarah´s sister comes on wednesday! We are super excited to have family coming. So it may be another week before there is another post.

But without further ado ....the first town we stopped in was only about 2 hours away from Seville. Cáceres is great to explore because there is a fairly large section of the city with medieval structure that shows no signs of modernity.

Looking across the plaza towards the old part of town.

Looking back at the newer part.

One of our students, Alyssa, rode along with us for the beginning of the trip. It gave Sarah someone to take a picture with and also (as you will see later) someone to take pictures of us.
La Iglesia San Francisco Javier

It was about mid day when we were there and everything was really calm and quiet.

I heard that many movies have been filmed in this area of town because it maintains the time period so well.

Photo by Alyssa

Sarah liked the wall so we shot some senior pics.

At one point there were many different wealthy families trying to control the city so they kept building bigger houses to show that they were the most powerful.

This plaza is one of the bigger nicer ones we have seen

and was recently redone

We only spent about an hour and a half in the city before we were back on the rode towards Salamanca. But we were really glad we stopped there. Salamanca is next!

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