June 22—Bye Madrid, Hello Salamanca!

Dear Family and Friends,

Friday, June 22: Even with our late night of packing, cleaning, and final research into our impending excursion, Dani somehow managed to arise before the alarm to prepare a packed lunch (yup, you guessed it, grilled cheese with chorizo sausage). We said good-bye to our little Madrid apartment at 9:30 AM and meandered the streets of the Asturias section for the last time, up to the Metro stop of Tirso de Molina.

With our huge packs, we were happy to find that the rush-hour traffic was not as bad in the direction we needed to travel. We were also thrilled to find that our prediction at the beginning of this trip—that after a month of living in Madrid our packs would no longer be the burden that they were when we first arrived from America—had come true. We walked stronger, faster, and without difficulty up and down the steps and through the Metro network of subways.

We purchased tickets to the university town of Salamanca about 30 minutes before the bus was to depart, and we were seated in the second-to-last row of the bus; thank goodness we didn’t arrive much later! We dropped our packs under the bus in the luggage compartment, and sat looking out the window to ensure that nobody absconded with them. We’ve been in Spain for a full month, and are still wary of our belongings—didn’t we notice the huge police-force all over Madrid? And, didn’t we see the many security guards in the bus station itself? We worry a bit less since we have travel insurance that would pay for the cost to replace belongings, but it would still be a huge inconvenience and sad to lose ‘our stuff from home.’ And so, we stare out the window whenever we can to keep an eye on our bags.
Of course, we’d be staring out the window for the next three hours along the route. We both were so fortunate to have parents who loved taking us for long drives as children (before the days of backseat DVD players); if we children got rambunctious, they would entertain us with car games and fun stories or loud radio. Now, sitting on a bus staring out the window for hours is an adventure, not to mention a photo op to capture the changing landscape!

What impressed us the most was just how much open land Spain has. It’s a country that has been fought over for thousands of years—Romans, Visigoths, Celts, Muslims, Christians—so the people have adapted to the security of living in walled-cities in what we would call apartment buildings, and have left large tracts of land clear for farming. About every five miles of riding along through the expanse of wheat fields, we would view the steeple of a church (always capped by a crane’s nest or two, it seemed) off in the distance on top of a small hill. Slowly, the bus would approach the village of perhaps 100 homes, drop off two people, and pull out of town into the next expanse of wheat fields.

We arrived in Salamanca before 2:00 PM and prepared to find a map to locate our hostel. Instead, all we had to do was look up—a huge sign on the building next to the bus station indicated that a hostel (with the same address as the one we sought!) was right around the corner. Since our packs had been so cumbersome in May when we left home, we booked the hostel that was closest to the bus station and still in our price range—but we would not have to do that any longer! Our legs feel so strong!

The Hostal Navasfrias in Salamanca turned out to be extremely quaint! Our room had a bath with a shower and delicate white quilts embroidered with green on the bed. Most importantly, it contained reinforced windows that completely quieted the surrounding bars in the late night. The gentleman behind the desk said it would be a 12-minute walk to the center of the historic district, but we stopped in the San Francisco park to enjoy our grilled cheese sandwiches and oranges in the shade of the trees.

After being refreshed with some more food and water, we headed into the town of Salamanca, an ancient village that is now rich with students studying at the several local universities. The buildings were amazingly monotonal in a reddish beige, and even the stone buildings without the original coloring are painted that color to match. The streets were lined with these buildings within the heart of the mostly pedestrian town, as well as the typical outdoor cafes. We passed a nunnery, the Convento de las Ursulas, with a statue dedicated to a poet that Martha studied in her Spanish classes at Penn State (Miguel de Unamuno), who lived in Salamanca and wrote of the beauty of the town. An interesting tid bit about this nunnery is that it houses Camelot, a local hot spot/discoteque! Martha, being the King Arthur buff that she is, was tempted to go back to enjoy the atmosphere that night, but did not know what ‘smart casual’ clothing meant.

From the Convent, we found ourselves in the Plaza Mayor, surrounded by international students, hearing more English among the crowds than we had in any other town, and finding the square to be another hot spot for lounging and enjoying an afternoon café con leche or cerveza in the sunshine. From there, we tried to take the walking tour of town recommended in the Lonely Planet, but found some errors in the guidance there (including the direction to head in to start the walk), so scrapped the whole thing and wandered around on our own, using the map to determine the points of interest. We first happened upon the Real Clerica de San Marcos, an old church located across the way from the Casa de las Conchas, a very interesting building with shells on the façade that are related to the Order of Santiago, which we later learned is the group of clerics who predominantly tended to the pilgrims who traveled the Camino de Santiago to see the resting place of St. James in our own destination town of Santiago de Compostela. We also enjoyed seeing the local clean-up crew at work, in this case a guy in a little car with a hose attached that he could maneuver to pick up the litter. We wanted to hop on board and play with the hose, but managed to control ourselves.

From there, we found the Colegio de Arzobispo Fonseca in the north near an amphitheater, but did not venture in as the courtyard was prepared for a music performance that night. We headed downhill and back up towards town, finding two more of the town’s collection of grandiose convents: Convento de las Duenas and Convento de San Estaban (photo to right). Around the corner, we enjoyed the unusual-especially-for-this-city design of the Museo de Art Nouveau y Art Deco (photo to left below) just outside the walls of this city, which was once home to the Celts before being overtaken by Hannibal in the 3rd century.

Back through the city walls, we didn’t stop until we found the Museo de la Guerra Civil, which had free entry and featured a collection of propaganda, letters, and photos from the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s when Franco was in power. It included details of the positions of both the nationalists and the fascists, including the hand positions of each group in support of their sides of the battle: a left-handed fist for the nationalists and a right-handed fist for the fascists. Letters home from the war, photos of the soldiers, games created in support and to raise money for either side, and the posters used to promote ideologies were particularly interesting, as was a separate display of the secret society of the Masons who were among the persecuted by Franco during the war.

From the museum, we enjoyed exploring the inside of the Catedral Nueva (photo to right), which sits immediately next to the Catedral Vieja, but did not pay the extra to see the older church or to climb the tower to overlook the people in the plaza or walking the streets. Catedral Nueva was impressive with its incredible ceilings, gorgeous statue of the Madonna in black, and great white pillars. Outside in the plaza, folks were enjoying the sunny afternoon beneath the cloisters of the towering Catedrals with their ornate arching entryways and towering sandstone.

From the Catedrals, we took a break for a cerveza and warm sunshine before enjoying the feeling of old in the 12th century Iglesia de San Martin, where a local member of the church—still in use—asked us where we were from and told us to enjoy! From those few minutes of contemplation in the pews, we returned to the Plaza Mayor once more where two wedding celebrations were in full swing and the brightly colored dresses of the attendees dazzled our eyes. By this later time in the evening, we were road weary and headed back to the hotel to enjoy the room for a bit of a siesta.

After our break, we wanted to see this great city by nightlight. It took us less than 20 minutes to walk from Hotel Navasfrias to the heart of the city, where we took photos of the Catedrals and found the façade of the Universidad Civil, which we had tried to find earlier in the day to no avail. Many of the locals have never found the frog that is hidden among this incredible work of art, and it is a must for all visitors and students to spend some time staring at the network of images—large and small details that quickly tire the eyes—searching for this small (and now eroded into difficult recognition) amphibian. Dani had read a description of where the frog was located, and readily found it; Martha was her usual stubborn self, trying to find the little froggy friend and putting her fingers in her ears as folks dropped by and talked about the location of the frog in Spanish or English. After quite a while, however, her eyeballs about fell out of her head, and Dani was kind enough to point out the frog’s location. Can you find it in the photo posted here (photo upper left of the entire façade)?

Back in Plaza Mayor one final time for the night, we caught six couples of dancers with castinets and traditional red and black garb dancing to the drum beats among a crowd of folks. A church choir visiting the city shared their voices in the grand acoustics of the square. We soaked it all in and loved every moment, smiling at the end of our first day back on the road, and ready to crash in our super-quiet—no loud neighbors—room for the night!

Much love,

Martha and Dani

PS—We have arrived safely in Bangkok, where we have some Internet access from our posh $150/wk apartment, where we are living with a grad student from Stanford. Martha should be able to catch us up on the blog slowly but surely!