Salamanca, Spain 🇪🇸 2019

Date: 16th August 2019

Travelled: Only by scooter in and out of Salamanca

Visited: Salamanca

Stayed: Camping Don Quixote, €22 all services N40.97538, W05.60448

Budget: 68 days @ €78 per day

After a long hot drive across the Spanish plains we arrive in Salamanca mid afternoon.

We follow the GPS to Camping Don Quijote, the place looks busy, but we find a reasonable spot in the shade and settle in. We don’t normally do campsites but parking in a car-park in a large city without shade on a hot summers day isn’t going to work either.

Map of Salamanca, the icon on our camping sight

The lady at the campsite tells us today the Feast of Assumption day, in Portugal that’s a public holiday, so most things are closed. We get the Kisbeee off the rack anyway and wiz into Salamanca to check parking etc for tomorrow.

So we’re in Salamanca. It’s not a huge city, less than 200,000 people and 25% of those are University student. Salamanca has two of the most famous universities in Europe.

Plaza Mayor, without doubt one of the most elegant and beautiful squares in Europe. I love symmetry and other than the adornment above the archway each of the 4 sides are identical.

We take the opportunity to climb the tower of the Universidad Pontification, for a view across the city. Mind you the dome of the adjoining chapel makes a nice photo.

Click this and you should get a full screen view.

The Ponte Romano (another one) across the Rio Tormes

Across the Ponte looking back into the Old City. The Cathedral captures the skyline.

As we walk back up from the Rio Tormes we see Archivo Guerro Civil. We wander in as Pam is looking for a restroom. This museum all appears to relate to the Spanish Civil War. Mind you this part looks disturbingly similar to your local lodge meeting on Tuesday evening.

So finally the Cathedral of Salamanca. There is the New Cathedral, the Old Cathedral and the Torres Medievales de la Cathedral. They all joined to form a single huge structure. It’s all pretty confusing. So we opt for the Cathedral Towers Visit €3.75 pp)

The is basically a self guided follow the arrows walk and climb all over the various part of the Cathedral, the roof, the spires and viewing platforms about the naves and chapels. It takes the best part of an hour and we thought it amazing.

It mid-afternoon and very hot by now, we decide we’ve done enough Salamanca for today. We ride the scooter back to the campsite, turn on the AC, have a shower and relax for a couple of hours.

Come 7pm we get ourselves motivated and ride back into Salamanca for dinner and a drink. We originally thought we would go down into the Plaza Mayor and pay tourist prices and get a good selfie. However looking through an old Rough Guide it recommended the tapas restaurants on Casa da Van Dyke, as the place the locals eat. So Van Dyke it was.

No English menus, but we enjoyed a series of tasty tapas portions of this and that as well as drinks for €13.

We manage to return to the campsite just before dark and Salamanca was done.

Michael and Pam