Salamanca

Wow, what a day. We were in Toledo this morning and had planned on staying basically two full days there. But, having seen the major sights we opted to leave a day early and drive about three hours to Salamanca.

Toledo was great. Hot, but great. We paid something like twelve bucks to get into the Cathedral there and it was well worth the money. The Sacristy had portraits of all the Cardinals of Toledo back to the first one supposedly from the year 105, according to date below the portrait. There was then a jump up to something like the year 355 or something like that and all the portraits between the first and those somewhere in the 1400's were all done, obviously, after the fact, by one artist. Humorously they all looked heiroglyphic (sp?) in a way since the artist had no real way of knowing exactly what they looked like so they were all painted, some 50 or so, using one of three basic poses and all wore sort of the same outfits. From about the late 1500's or so is where they all started to appear distinctive and it was a fascinating "look" into the past. You could see the change in vestment as time went on and in hair styles and such. I though it was thoroughly amazing. I think Anneka just saw it as a bunch of pictures of dudes long dead and gone. One interesting artifact is that the Cardinals, upon their deaths, have their hats suspended from a cable from a certain part of the Cathedral literally until that hat decays into oblivion. There were only a few up there and I think the oldest one was only from the 1970's or something. I would have thought they'd last longer.

I´'m at an internet café and this Spanish keyboard is driving me nuts!¿ Keys are in weird places and some do crazy Spanish things¡!¡!¿?¿?¿?¿ (there's a string of right side up and upside down question marks and exclamation points here in case they doesn't show up in the blog when read on computers that speak English...)

Anyways, I got up early this morning, 10am - that's early for us on this trip, and headed out to snap some pictures, stroll and explore while Anneka soaked up the sights of the insides of her eyelids for a while longer. We checked out at noon, bought some churros and headed off to Salamanca. I'd bought some art earlier that morning and halfway out of town I convinced Anneka that I needed another two pieces from the same artist to complete a "set", so we turned around and headed back. After that we loaded up with a couple more churros, popped Harry Potter in the CD player and took off again.

I found the drive to be rather spectacular. In part due to the amazing granite outcroppings mixed with a strange type of local pine tree forest we'd driven through, similar to Cochise Stronghold in southern Arizona in a way, as well as the curvy nature of the small road we were on that kept me in a racecar driver fantasy land the entire time. Driving at the speed limit of course... Our car is a Turbo Opel Vectra. It too, as have been our rentals in the past, is very peppy.

Anyways, the drive was nice and if I have one regret its that we're only like 6 CD's into what must be a 15 or 16 CD set for the complete Harry Potter book six so we'll never finish the cursed thing and it has definitely peaked my curiosity.

So, here we are in Salamanca. What an amazing little place. When we arrived we found out that nearly everything is shut down as today is some holiday of sorts. I don't know, perhaps a Spanish "Pioneer day" or something. This was only a problem since we wanted to wash some clothes and the only Coin-op Laudromat in THIS half of Spain was closed for the day. We've neede to do the laundry for some time but it's not "typical" to have a laundromat here. Thankfully due to the laudry fiasco we had at our first hotel in Barcelona we have plenty of undies but I swear if I take these shorts off now they'll walk themselves back to the hotel on their own...

Thankfully two of the most important sights in the city were still open in spite of the holiday. The two churches they call the "Old" and the "New" Catherdrals. The new is free and the old costs about seven bucks a head to get into.

Wow! They were eye popping and made me so gratefull we'd decided to come. The new Catherdral was constructed, as are many over several decades, even centuries and is a mix of style from Gothic to Baroque. The old, however is pure Romanesque and was a sight to behold! I guess I can do this too - ¡ or this ¿ or this ç or this ñ. Sorry

Anyhow the old Cathedral was simply amazing! There were fantatic frescoes in unparalleled states of preservation that were like portals on a time long gone by. The depictions of the clothes and buildings in the frescoes show, as if in an 900 year old photograph, exactly what life looked like. It makes perfect sense, they painted only what they saw and knew.

The University of Salamanca, historically, is one of the oldest in Europe and was at the top of the heap in the early 1300's. It got it's start rather inauspiciously from when students and local teachers would gather in a side chapel off the cloister there in the old church to study together. From those humble beginnings arose one of the greatest institutions of learning in history.

Our entry ticket also included a self guided tour of interior and exterior balconies in both Catherdrals and was certainly the icing on the cake for this kid. Following a famous earthquake in Lisbon in like 1755 or something many parts of the buildings were destabilized, none more however than the area were these balconies are. So, the interior passage ways and spiral staircases were filled in to add additional support to the buildings. Only recently, in like the last ten years I think, did they finally excavate those passages and open up these areas for exploration. So, the lighting inside was exquisite and the newly restored, vaulted rooms were filled with centuries of liturgical trinkets, documents and other found objects in beatiful display cases with heavenly choral, instrumental and gregorian chant music reverberating off the walls. I sat in this one room for like half an hour and listened to this ten minute loop of music play over and over again. It was inspiring.

Anyways after that gratifying experience we found an Italian restaurant and had a great meal. This after a meal last night that tied with the one in Cor... Córdoba, as being the nastiest on the trip. So, Anneka was flush with great food, I was flush with great sights and we were both very content. What a great day. We took in the significantly cooler night air during a "paseo" that seemed to bring all of Salamanca's residents out with us. The monuments are all lit up beautifully and except that I smell like I haven't bathed in weeks and desperately need a shower, I'd stay up longer to explore some more.

Later,

Chris, and from the comfy confines of her bed right now I'm sure, Anneka