Salamanca, 5 and 6 June

Salamanca, Sunday and Monday 5 and 6 June

Took a boat up the Douro river among the port wine vineyards en route to Salamanca. It was very relaxing.

Proof of relaxation.

We left from a litle town called Regua, passing under the big new highway bridge. Portugal has terrific 4 lane highways everywhere and has not skimped on bridges and tunnels. No wonder the economy is struggling a bit to pay for it all.

Along the Douro valley in the port wine region the vines are mostly planted in terraces on steep hillsides. Very pretty, but it would be hard work tending and harvesting. There was no sign of any such thing happening - siesta time I suppose?

For some engineering excitement we passed a lock on a hydro dam that lifted the boat up over 20m.

Arrived in Salamanca that evening, ready for a reasonably relaxed next day in Salamanca to see and enjoy the town. Salamanca is an old university town with about 150,000 residents and 65,000 students. About half the students are from other countries and are here to learn the Spanish (Castillian) language. You see, Spanish is spoken in it's purest form here so we were told...

The main points of interest in Salamanca are the universty buildings and the twin cathedral. There has been a cathedral in Salamanca since about the 1200's, built in the Romanesque style. In the 1600's it was decided to buld a new and bigger cathedral on the same site in the then current Gothic style. The project took so long that plans changed and it was decided to keep the old cathedral with the new one joined on to it. So now there is quite a unique structure!

Salamanca cathedral, a mix of styles.

There have been some recent repairs to the stonework with the repairer sneakily adding a new carving - an astronaut! Obviously there was no such thing back in the 1600's so this caused quite a furore for a while, but is now just another talking point for tourists.

The usual stone used for construction is limestone from the area which is greyish when first used but weathers to a lovely golden colour. Hence Salamanca is sometimes referred to as the golden town. The process takes 70 or 80 years which is not too long in the lifespan of these buildings.

The symbol of Salamanca is the frog. This has some mysterious significance to universiry students and is famously included in the carvings around the university main door where there is a small carving of a frog on a skull - apparently associating death and lust. A bit unclear what it's all about, but a good story.

The university in the distant past had a system of natural consequences to encouage good study habits. Any student who failed was made to exit the university by a special gate (the donkey's gate) and was greated by a hail of rotten fruit from the watching crowd. Next they were tossed in a blanket and let fall onto the stone pavement. After this encouragment they were given a chance to repeat the course - apparently not many did so.

As the afternoon was not too full, it was a good chance to get down and experience real Spanish day to day life. I went to hang out with the cool guys at the laundromat. None of the other cool guys were there, having been detained at a bar, or maybe just on siesta. So I had the run of the place and as a result we finally had some clean clothes again.

For added excitement I also went to the post office to send a parcel back to NZ. It was like a time warp - NZ post of 30 years ago. It took 45 minutes to complete the necessaries, and I hope the parcel will actually arrive within the promised 30 days (or at all!) However, I did make good friends with Lorenzo the post office teller. He was very patient - no doubt an attribute in his job.

In the evening we strolled into the old town for dinner, across the 2,000+ year old roman bridge which is still in routine use today. Had a pleasant dinner with friends and a night cap as the sun set in the Plaza Mayor (main square).