October 31 - Salamanca and Avila Spain

This morning we were up very early for our tour to Salamanca and Avila.  We had a three hour bus ride to Salamanca with a short stop on the way. 

Along the way we saw mountains dusted with snow

and castles.

We had a short walking tour of parts of the old town of Salamanca.  First stop was the Plaza Mayor.  Every town  in Spain has a Plaza Major.  It was a main meeting place and place of commerce.  And, in the past they had bull fights in the plazas, but not anymore.

We walked by the Casa de las Conchas or the Shell Building.  Built in the late 1500's it has more than 300 shells decorating the facade...

as well as various Gothic and Moorish architectural elements. 

There were a number of other very interesting buildings (but we don't remember what the guide told us about them...we generally don't take notes).

There was much discussion during the tour about the university in Salamanca.   

La Puerta de Salamanca - Gate to the University

There is a frog carved onto a skull on the facade above the main door to the university (the Puerta de la Salamanca).  There are several theories behind the presence of the frog.  One is that if a student can find the frog without help then he (they were always he's back then) will pass their exams and have good luck.

It is the third oldest university in Europe after the ones in Bologna, Italy and Oxford in England. In the square before the main university entrance they have a countdown clock.  In 61 days the university will be exactly 800 years old.  A quick google confirmed that it was established in 1218 but also that teaching was confirmed to have occurred here at least as far back as 1130.  That would make it a teaching site for 888 years.  Can you imagine? 

We also had tickets to the cathedral, which was very interesting as it consists of two separate but joined churches.  The old Romanesque church dates from the 14th century and the newer section, in late Gothic and Baroque style, was finished and consecrated in 1733.

The facade of the cathedral was restored in the 1990's and we were told that at every restoration there is some addition made to help pinpoint the time period of the work.  In this case, they incorporated a small carving of an astronaut on a space walk and a little demon (or something) holding an ice cream cone.  Rather whimsical.

The cathedral had some very beautiful art work as part of an exhibit.

The main interior of the new cathedral was dominated by the large pillars... 

and arched ceilings.

An Altar.

The Quire (where the choir sits).

The organ was tucked in between some of the columns.

After our tour of the cathedral we headed towards the center of town where we ran into a group in local costume.  Looked like maybe they were getting ready to do a performance.

We grabbed a quick pizza for lunch, actually very good.  While there one of the musicians we had just seen on the street came into the restaurant and proceeded to give a mini- concert to some friends.

We wandered the town a bit more and saw a number of shops featuring the local hams

and we revisited a square that we had wandered through at the start of the tour.

On the way out we passed an old palace with a beautiful Art Nouveau inspired glass observatory.

After leaving Salamanca we headed off through the countryside...

for our second stop of the day, Avila.  Avila has an intact medieval wall with 80 crenelated towers and nine gates.  Our first stop was an overlook with amazing views of the walls. 

Then it was on to the town itself.  

The walking tour started at the visitor's center where they had a lot of wooden models of various buildings in Avila as well as one of the entire town within the walls.

The tour included tickets into one of the churches.  Avila has more Romanesque and Gothic churches per capita than any other town in Spain.  We didn’t have time to see more than the one.  

Apparently the walls are lit at night and it is supposed to be a pretty awesome sight.  We really didn’t have enough time in either city but had a good taste of them. 

If we come back to Spain we will have to revisit both.  After an hour plus drive we were back in a damp Madrid.  On the way in we saw this gate.

We dropped off some stuff at the hotel and found a restaurant for dinner (during the Spanish evening dining time of after 8:00).  Tried their vegetarian paella and we both agreed that we liked it much better than the paella we had two nights before.

Today is Halloween and we saw many out on the streets in costume.  And our hotel lobby was decorated for the holiday.