No jokes about 'the rain in Spain' please!

---

The night spent at our ‘emergency’ stopover turned in to two, the weather was pretty miserable but we took advantage of the site’s free Wi-Fi to plan our next few stops and devise a daft game: Campsite Croc/Clog Snooker (to do with scoring points if you spot someone wearing a pair of crocs of a certain colour… we had too much time on our hands, yes). With a route planned we headed off on the long, long road to Salamanca, driving past some majestic snow covered mountains on our left as we neared Burgos. Hours later, we made a final stop at an obscenely large ‘E. Leclerc’ supermarket, which was totally empty of customers, to stock up before arriving at our campsite.

Over the next few days it’s safe to say that the weather was vile! There was rain, hail stones and night time temperatures down to 2 or 3 degrees… Spain? In May?? Very chilly in Petit Van Blanc! Despite the weather we explored the city as best we could. There is a fantastic central square in Salamanca: Plaza Mayor, built between 1729 and 1755, it is absolutely magnificent! There is a covered walkway all around the edge, housing cafes, the tourist office, bars and a few shops, ideal for dodging the downpours (coffee soooo much cheaper than in France too!). There are oval plaques displaying the faces of famous figures placed all around the square, including, controversially, one of Franco, who has been moulded completely differently to the rest of the figures: out of a plastic material so that the frequent graffiti over him can be cleaned off.

Salamanca became a university city in 1218; the university became equal to Britain’s Oxford in status and was a centre for the resistance to fascism from the Spanish civil war which began in 1936 to the end of Franco’s rule. Aside from the university buildings there are convents, museums, churches and two cathedrals so ornate I couldn’t begin to describe them, I’ve added some pictures instead! The overall visual of the city’s old buildings, owing to the kinds of stone used in construction, is of a soft yellow gold colour, the building names are stencilled on to the facades using a faded brick red paint that compliments perfectly, the street names are inlayed using ceramic tiles… it really is beautifully preserved.

There is, amongst others, a museum in the city called Museo Casa Lis, which houses a fantastic collection of Art Nouveau and Art Deco: examples of glassware, vases, paintings, prints of Vogue magazine covers, children’s toys, jewellery, stained glass windows, furniture and more, all dating from between 1900 and the 1930’s. There were some beautiful pieces but I wished there had been more information about each one as the labelling was a bit basic. Salamanca also offers a whole stack of other museums, such as cars, history of Salamanca and trade and industry but we didn’t have time for all of them! We did make time for the ‘tourist train’ ride which runs around and through the city ensuring you get to see all the major monuments and buildings, usually we just wander through the streets with a map but the little trains look fun (I think) so we paid the fare and were bounced around the bumpy cobbled streets listening to a Spanish commentary!

We ate a lovely, and very cheap, lunch of pintxos, in a bar on the square whose name I’ve forgotten unfortunately. The menu included choices of little pieces of fillet steak with a blue cheese sauce, vegetable tempura, tortilla slices, some smokey mashed potato with paprika and fried bacon lardons, miniature burgers with caramelised onion relish (beef, chicken or veggie) to name a few! There were little cakes and puddings too but we had eaten too many of the savouries so had to give them a miss. A selection of the pintxos and a couple of glasses of wine each came to less than 20 Euros and it wasn’t what I’ve have termed a light lunch!

---