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| Marg in Ciudad Rodrigo, Spain |
We’d just crossed the border from Portugal into Spain, and reached Ciudad
Rodrigo, a walled town perched on the top of a rocky rise. This town has been occupied since Neolithic times, and is full of interesting narrow
streets, lined with attractive stone buildings.
We strolled around the city admiring the 12th century cathedral,
several mansions, palaces, the main square, and the town hall. Then we stopped
for an ice-cream before driving on to Salamanca.
However, our GPS system took us past Salamanca city to an obscure motorway exit, through narrow back roads and a very
small village, before finally getting us to our campsite.
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| Leigh in Salamanca’s Plaza Mayor with the City Hall behind (UNESCO) |
Our focus was the old town, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so we headed straight for the Plaza Mayor, the main town square.
The Plaza Mayor is touted to be one the most beautiful squares in
Europe – we don’t disagree – it is surrounded by Baroque architecture, with attractive
cafés, restaurants and shops and quite lovely.
It was a Sunday and quiet when we first arrived, but then suddenly
everyone started to come out and wander around the town, making it very buzzy.
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| Salamanca street (UNESCO), Spain |
The streets are lined with impressive sandstone-coloured buildings, with lots of churches, and lovely plazas. The sandstone buildings give Salamanca its nickname of ‘The Golden City’.
Salamanca was founded by the Celts in around 400 BC. The various conquerors since then, have all left their mark on the city's architecture.
We could see the various styles in the Old and the New Cathedral, La Conchas and Monterrey and other palaces and mansions, various churches and
convents, the Roman Bridge, and even the central market. We walked
around sightseeing for ages.
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| Jamón Iibérico (Iberian ham) hanging in a Salamanca shop |
Cycling in again the next day, we spotted a long queue of women outside
a shop, and stopped to check it out.
The shop had dozens of
ham legs hanging to dry, and was selling jamón ibérico
(Iberian ham, which is a delicacy). We tasted some later and it was delicious.
After that we visited the Salamanca University. Founded in 1254. it is one of the oldest universities in the world. It’s a major
provider of Spanish language teaching, and apparently, the purest form of
Spanish is spoken in Salamanca.
The main university building dates back to
the 15th century and is quite ornate, and very attractive.
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| Marg enjoying tapas and beer in Salamanca (UNESCO), Spain |
At the end of the day, we enjoyed tapas and a beer at a café, then cycled
back to camp.
On the way, we saw so many people out eating, drinking and
picnicking all along the river, and enjoying the late afternoon sun.
That night we had the first rain we’ve had for a very long time. It was
really heavy and definitely cooled the air so that it was quite chilly the next
day. So, we just hung out in the van and got some computer stuff done after a
lazy, slow start to the day.
Overall, we had a really enjoyable break in beautiful Salamanca.
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| Marg in charming Zamora, Spain |
Saying goodbye to Salamanca we headed north to Zamora, where we stopped
to explore the old town and its charming and picturesque streets.
Zamora dates back to Roman times and is known as 'the museum of
Romanesque art' having 24 Romanesque churches, more than anywhere else in
Europe.
We certainly didn’t see all of the churches, but we saw a lot of
Zamora. Although the 35 degrees Celsius heat stopped us from seeing more.
Soon, it was time to move on as we wanted to cross the border back into
Portugal.
Unfortunately, our GPS again took us a long way around and we had to
double back across a very hilly, winding road before we could get to Bragança,
Portugal, our next stop.
This blog describes part of our 6 month
campervan trip around western Europe, which began in Prague in April.