Sunday, May 07, 2006
Report from Salamanca
With Salamanca (two and a half hours from Madrid by train, arriving midday Monday the 1st of May) it is love at first sight. The Plaza Mayor, designed by one of the Churriguera brothers, creators of the superbaroque style I have so loved on churches in Mexico, is even more splendid than Madrid's, the same type of huge square encircled by buildings four stories high with portales and enormous arches, but this one in sandstone, not brick, with bells and a clock, medallions adorned with busts of the famous, and lots of baroque curlicues--and everywhere you look in this town there are baroque curlicues on façades and spires and domes, everything a color between mustard and beige. Cafés with tables in the plaza of course, my first stop the tourist office for a map and pamphlets, with a negative reaction to the walking tours--here they cost 6€ and have a minimum group size of 14, whereas in Madrid the old-age discount price was 2.60€ and the groups were four or five.
Thanks to a recommendation on an Internet forum, I am staying in a pensión of only six rooms, a renovated apartment one flight up, just 25€, down the street from the Plaza Mayor, a bigger and prettier room (wrought-iron headboards) than I paid 60 for in Madrid, a tiny baño without the amenities.
Salamanca is a university town, the university dating from the 13th century, its most famous feature being a 16th-century carved sandstone façade of plateresque filigree featuring Fernando and Isabel surrounded by religious and mythological creatures and coats of arms. After gazing at the façade you can tour old lecture rooms and the chapel around a cloister, spectacular mudejar ceilings in the halls. Then you climb a stairway elaborately carved on the side to reach the library, dating from 1509, a plastic wall at the entrance of which keeps you from entering, so you peer at the masses of ancient books and the many globes.
The other university, private and religious, the Pontifical University, is a 20th-century institution housed in a 17th-century building erected by the Jesuits, with a magnificent cloister and adjoining a church, La Clerecía, with magnificant chirrigueresque gold altarpieces.
Salamanca is also blessed with two cathedrals, the old and the new, the old built between the 12th and 15th centuries, the new from the 16th to the 18th. The new cathedral (Gothic with baroque adornment), more from the outside than from the inside, is exhilerating and overpowering, with its huge bulk and its delicate stone-carved adornments. It lacks elaborate gold altarpieces but does have elaborately carved choir stalls and two beautiful, gold-encrusted organs, and to the side of the front of the pews is what looks like a wide podium but turns out to be a slanted mirror to see the incredible Gothic ceiling without straining.
The centerpiece of the much smaller old cathedral (Romanesque outside, Gothic inside), which abuts the new one and is entered from it, is a magnificent 15th-century altarpiece of 50 paintings with gold trim (beautifully restored) depicting scenes from the life of Jesus, with the final judgment painted overhead. In between the two cathedrals is an entrance that takes you to a self-guided tour of towers, which gives you a view of this masterpiece from above. As you ascend further you´re on an outside platform with a view of the cathedrals, the city, and the Tormes River, and then continuing up you´re on a ledge (with railing) inside and high above the central nave of the new cathedral.
Near the cathedrals is the Casa de las Conchas, a 15th-century Gothic palace whose original owner had the façade covered with conch shells carved in stone, the conch being used in coat of arms of his wife. The building, whose original patio is still intact, now houses the public library.
Then there are convents--the Convento de San Estéban immense and with a church the equal of the Clerecía, a kiosko in the patio surrounded by its huge cloister, you enter a room and lights go on and music plays, there are many captions about how the Dominicans went to the New World to evangelize early on, the Convento de la Dueñas much more modest, with lots of wood, a pretty patio with lots of pansies within a five-sided cloister, the nuns selling sweets (I buy some cookies).
The mystery deepens as to how Spaniards stay thin--they do chocolate caliente con churros, hot chocolate (which at the Chocolatería Valor is incredibly thick and sticky) with elongated donuts. (My concern about losing weight has vanished since I discovered this mid-morning treat.) They seem more informal, or less elaborately polite, than the Mexicans--when you walk into a store or museum it´s ¡Hola! not Buenos días. On the other hand they raise their umbrellas at the first hint of rain, which a Mexican would never do.
Eating vegetarian is less of a struggle here than in Madrid. There is a restaurant near the University that offers a menú with gazpacho as the first course and stuffed eggplant as the second, there is another one around the corner that offers platos combinados, some of which are veggie, and when I go off in search of the Roman Bridge I pass a vegetarian restaurant, which turns out to serve a lovely comida. Because the Spanish have no dark beer (the only kind I drink) and because wine is an option with a menú, I am drinking wine with comida instead of beer with cena. In the elegant market it is striking how the stands selling meat or fish greatly outnumber the stands selling fruits and vegetables; in any event, I discover a supermarket with a better selection and with whole-wheat half baguettes. In the produce section the dispenser of plastic bags has above it a dispenser of plastic gloves with a sign asking you to use them to select your produce (I think of the Frutería Torres on Calle Alhóndiga in Guanajuato).
A book fair starts on Saturday, which I tour, but I am pining for some easy reading in English, and I find and buy The Da Vinci Code in a bookstore, thinking of how the movie may never make it to Guanajuato. On my early evening stroll by the book fair, I run into a clown entertaining the kiddies with balloons at a nearby plaza, then hear a band marching by and follow it, only to come upon a second and then a third band, all coming out by a little church called the Capilla de la Vera Cruz, with a sign indicating it is the 500th anniversary of the Vera Cruz. Inside the capilla is a massive gold altarpiece and a large silver cross mounted on a wooden platform with handles, which presumably will be processioned later on.
Crossing the Plaza Mayor at midday Sunday, I hear music, which turns out to come from a man banging on a drum and simultaneously playing a recorder, which it turns out is accompaniament to three 60ish couples dancing facing each other, a sedate dance with occasional turns, one of the men playing castanets. A little later, the platform in the plaza by the book fair is hosting a band concert. And still later, opposite my pensión there is a puppeteer whose puppet is playing the violin (well, not really; the music is recorded) while two little dogs wag their tales.
In a free weekly magazine for Salamanca and environs, I read about a program to find employment for gypsies (the program, translating, "accompanies the candidates to the companies to avoid the feared racist prejudice") and that the Senegalese association of Salamanca is sponsoring its fourth cultural week of lectures, round tables, a photography exhibition, and a soccer game.
Just outside the centro histórico, I should mention, there are plentiful five-story apartment buildings, but built in the same color as the historical buildings, plain with black wrought-iron balconies, all blending in well.
Monday I go to Toledo, which involves my most complicated transition. Aside from having to take a train to Madrid and a second train from Madrid to Toledo, the train to Madrid arrives in one of its two train stations and the train to Toledo leaves from the other, so I will be taking a commuter train in between.
Thanks to a recommendation on an Internet forum, I am staying in a pensión of only six rooms, a renovated apartment one flight up, just 25€, down the street from the Plaza Mayor, a bigger and prettier room (wrought-iron headboards) than I paid 60 for in Madrid, a tiny baño without the amenities.
Salamanca is a university town, the university dating from the 13th century, its most famous feature being a 16th-century carved sandstone façade of plateresque filigree featuring Fernando and Isabel surrounded by religious and mythological creatures and coats of arms. After gazing at the façade you can tour old lecture rooms and the chapel around a cloister, spectacular mudejar ceilings in the halls. Then you climb a stairway elaborately carved on the side to reach the library, dating from 1509, a plastic wall at the entrance of which keeps you from entering, so you peer at the masses of ancient books and the many globes.
The other university, private and religious, the Pontifical University, is a 20th-century institution housed in a 17th-century building erected by the Jesuits, with a magnificent cloister and adjoining a church, La Clerecía, with magnificant chirrigueresque gold altarpieces.
Salamanca is also blessed with two cathedrals, the old and the new, the old built between the 12th and 15th centuries, the new from the 16th to the 18th. The new cathedral (Gothic with baroque adornment), more from the outside than from the inside, is exhilerating and overpowering, with its huge bulk and its delicate stone-carved adornments. It lacks elaborate gold altarpieces but does have elaborately carved choir stalls and two beautiful, gold-encrusted organs, and to the side of the front of the pews is what looks like a wide podium but turns out to be a slanted mirror to see the incredible Gothic ceiling without straining.
The centerpiece of the much smaller old cathedral (Romanesque outside, Gothic inside), which abuts the new one and is entered from it, is a magnificent 15th-century altarpiece of 50 paintings with gold trim (beautifully restored) depicting scenes from the life of Jesus, with the final judgment painted overhead. In between the two cathedrals is an entrance that takes you to a self-guided tour of towers, which gives you a view of this masterpiece from above. As you ascend further you´re on an outside platform with a view of the cathedrals, the city, and the Tormes River, and then continuing up you´re on a ledge (with railing) inside and high above the central nave of the new cathedral.
Near the cathedrals is the Casa de las Conchas, a 15th-century Gothic palace whose original owner had the façade covered with conch shells carved in stone, the conch being used in coat of arms of his wife. The building, whose original patio is still intact, now houses the public library.
Then there are convents--the Convento de San Estéban immense and with a church the equal of the Clerecía, a kiosko in the patio surrounded by its huge cloister, you enter a room and lights go on and music plays, there are many captions about how the Dominicans went to the New World to evangelize early on, the Convento de la Dueñas much more modest, with lots of wood, a pretty patio with lots of pansies within a five-sided cloister, the nuns selling sweets (I buy some cookies).
The mystery deepens as to how Spaniards stay thin--they do chocolate caliente con churros, hot chocolate (which at the Chocolatería Valor is incredibly thick and sticky) with elongated donuts. (My concern about losing weight has vanished since I discovered this mid-morning treat.) They seem more informal, or less elaborately polite, than the Mexicans--when you walk into a store or museum it´s ¡Hola! not Buenos días. On the other hand they raise their umbrellas at the first hint of rain, which a Mexican would never do.
Eating vegetarian is less of a struggle here than in Madrid. There is a restaurant near the University that offers a menú with gazpacho as the first course and stuffed eggplant as the second, there is another one around the corner that offers platos combinados, some of which are veggie, and when I go off in search of the Roman Bridge I pass a vegetarian restaurant, which turns out to serve a lovely comida. Because the Spanish have no dark beer (the only kind I drink) and because wine is an option with a menú, I am drinking wine with comida instead of beer with cena. In the elegant market it is striking how the stands selling meat or fish greatly outnumber the stands selling fruits and vegetables; in any event, I discover a supermarket with a better selection and with whole-wheat half baguettes. In the produce section the dispenser of plastic bags has above it a dispenser of plastic gloves with a sign asking you to use them to select your produce (I think of the Frutería Torres on Calle Alhóndiga in Guanajuato).
A book fair starts on Saturday, which I tour, but I am pining for some easy reading in English, and I find and buy The Da Vinci Code in a bookstore, thinking of how the movie may never make it to Guanajuato. On my early evening stroll by the book fair, I run into a clown entertaining the kiddies with balloons at a nearby plaza, then hear a band marching by and follow it, only to come upon a second and then a third band, all coming out by a little church called the Capilla de la Vera Cruz, with a sign indicating it is the 500th anniversary of the Vera Cruz. Inside the capilla is a massive gold altarpiece and a large silver cross mounted on a wooden platform with handles, which presumably will be processioned later on.
Crossing the Plaza Mayor at midday Sunday, I hear music, which turns out to come from a man banging on a drum and simultaneously playing a recorder, which it turns out is accompaniament to three 60ish couples dancing facing each other, a sedate dance with occasional turns, one of the men playing castanets. A little later, the platform in the plaza by the book fair is hosting a band concert. And still later, opposite my pensión there is a puppeteer whose puppet is playing the violin (well, not really; the music is recorded) while two little dogs wag their tales.
In a free weekly magazine for Salamanca and environs, I read about a program to find employment for gypsies (the program, translating, "accompanies the candidates to the companies to avoid the feared racist prejudice") and that the Senegalese association of Salamanca is sponsoring its fourth cultural week of lectures, round tables, a photography exhibition, and a soccer game.
Just outside the centro histórico, I should mention, there are plentiful five-story apartment buildings, but built in the same color as the historical buildings, plain with black wrought-iron balconies, all blending in well.
Monday I go to Toledo, which involves my most complicated transition. Aside from having to take a train to Madrid and a second train from Madrid to Toledo, the train to Madrid arrives in one of its two train stations and the train to Toledo leaves from the other, so I will be taking a commuter train in between.
# posted by Louise Lander @ 12:55 PM 
