We had an awesome weekend in Salamanca! After sleeping in our crowded hostel makeshift bed together, we all got up and got ready to go explore. The first thing we did was go to the Universidad de Salamanca, the third oldest university in all of Europe. When the university was first founded in 1138, it was only for men and you could major in one of three majors: Theology, Philosophy, or Medicine. We looked into some of the classrooms and explored the library, which had over 260,000 volumes of books.
After the university, we decided to explore the cathedral next door. There are two cathedrals in Salamanca: The Old Cathedral and the New Cathedral (creative, right?). We decided to explore the Old Cathedral and climb the bell tower so we could hear the bells go off at the top of the hour. The Old Cathedral was finished in the 14th century and featured a Gothic-Romanesque style roof, which we were able to climb on top of to get to the bell tower.
The Old Cathedral is the resting place of various bishops from the 15th century, and we saw numerous tombs and altars dedicated to saints. We hiked 200+ stairs in a very narrow spiral staircase to get to the bells, and the view of the city was gorgeous!
On Sunday, we went to the Museo de Art Deco y Art Nouveau, where I got to see works by Salvador Dali and Joan Miro. However, I was star-struck by a small gallery of lesser-known works by Pablo Picasso. My favorite was one of his numerous “woman in a chair” paintings, where he used bright yellow and pale blue to outline her shoulders and dress. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take any pictures inside the museum, so there’s no proof I actually saw the paintings by Picasso. The painting was only the size of a sheet of paper, but I felt like I gazed at it for at least 20 minutes.
After we finished at the museum, we went back to the train station and took the train back to Valladolid. Overall, I’d recommend Salamanca to anyone looking for some great places to explore in Spain! Ciao!
Anna-phylactic Shock 