Salamanca

Wednesday all of us ISU students went on another school trip, this time to Salamanca. Salamanca is north of Caceres, it was about a 3 hour bus trip. When we arrived, it was raining. And cold. And windy. But the city was still really cool and we still did the whole day as planned, even though we weren't the happiest students to be there.

The first place we went to was the university there. It's the oldest university in Spain, built in the early 1200's. A lot of very famous Spanish people have studied or taught tere. That was really neat, and the buildings and library were very pretty. In the courtyard of the university there is a huge facade that has lots of different statues and sculptures on it. There is a hidden frog somewhere on the facade, and the story is that if you find it, you'll have good luck. I found it, but this was after I stared at the wall for 13 mintues, asked someone to show me where it was, still couldn't find it, asked someone else and then finally saw where it was hidden. So after all that, I don't think I'll get much good luck out of it.

We went to the Plaza Mayor of Salamanca. It was one of the coolest plazas I've seen in Spain. It was in the shape of a square, completely enclosed. I guess they used to have bull fights there. All around it were arches that lead to restaurants, cafes, and shops.

We also saw the Cathedral. There are actually two cathedrals, an old one and a new one. Our tour guide said that the old one wasn't good enough, so they had to build a better one. But the two are both connected. The inside was cool, but really dark. The alter was the most simple and plain alter I have ever seen. Usually the alters have huge gold statues and stain glass behind them, but this one had nothing. It was weird to see that.

We had free time to eat and go shopping. We left around 6:30 or so and made the trip back to Caceres. Good time. :)