Ávila and Segovia

The next morning we got up around 9 and got on the bus to go to Ávila, about an hour and a half from Salamanca. On this entire trip we were in southern part of Castilla and León (actually in the Castilla portion of the province) and pretty close to Madrid, or at least closer than I have previously been at this point in my travels. Ávila is known for it's perfectly preserved medieval walls, which completely encircle the old city and have been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city is situated on a high, treeless plateau surrounded by mountains, and is actually the highest provincial capital in Spain, at 3,665 feet.

Welcome to Ávila? Your signs say "yes" but your walls say "no" . . .

View of the surrounding landscape

The walls, there are 88 towers and 9 gateways

Ávila street, with the landscape at the end

The Cathedral of Ávila, the back of which actually forms part of the walls

You wanna get into this city, you're gonna have to go through me! Oh, and these big walls . . .

Yemas de Santa Teresa, the typical dessert of Ávila. "Yemas" means egg yolks, which is fitting because that is the main ingredient of these little custard balls, along with some milk, probably some other stuff, and a whole lot of sugar. Yeah, I tried one, but I didn't go back for seconds.

We walked around Ávila for about an hour and then set of to the east again towards Segovia. Before arriving in Segovia all I knew about it was that it had a famous Roman aqueduct that is on the cover of many high school Spanish books, and I was excited enough to see that without knowing what else we would be seeing. As you will see later, I was pleasantly surprised. But first, the aqueduct.

Looking down the hill that required the construction of this aqueduct by the Romans. Aqueducts, you see, are designed to provide water to cities by maintaining a gentle downward slope from the source to the intended destination. Once the water runs down a hill into a valley you can't get it back out unless you have a pump or something, so the aqueduct is like a bridge for the water over said valley. Sorry for talking to you all like children, but I got carried away with my explanation.

The aqueduct at it's highest point, 100.53 feet. Built around the first or second century AD, it is comprised of 20,400 granite blocks held together without any mortar or clamps, and has 166 arches and 120 pillars.

Looking back up the hill

Trying to get artsy and frame a church tower in an arch, but there were foreigners in the foreground

After checking out the aqueduct we were each given 4 euros and led to a "Rodillas" (knees), which is like a Spanish subway, but they mostly have cold sandwiches with the crust cut off. I don't know why it's called knees, but I wasn't going to complain about a partially subsidized lunch. Afterward we had some time to check out the surrounding area while waiting on the rest of the group to meet up and go to a lookout point, or so they told us.

Víctor and I being friendly while wearing opposing jester hats in a souvenir shop. (His is for Barcelona and mine is Real Madrid, which are the two most famous Spanish soccer teams and fierce rivals)

Segovia also has a cathedral, but it costs money to go inside. And we'll see more of it later

When we got to the "look out point" there were fabulous views of the countryside, which was what we in America would consider as typically Spanish, rolling brown hills. There was also something through the trees that looked pretty awesome, an Alcázar! I don't know if the guides had told us about it and I simply didn't hear/understand, or if they were trying to surprise us, but this castle (Alcázar means fortress, adapted into Spanish from Arabic) looked totally awesome and I was super excited to explore it.

Alcázar of Segovia, surrounded by cliffs at the edge of the city. It was built by the Arabs but expanded over the years by various monarchs of the Kingdom of Castilla, of whom it was a favorite royal residence. It is also the site where Fernando and Isabel, the Catholic monarchs who financed Columbus' first voyage, were married.

Front view, we were told that the castle at Disneyland Paris was partially inspired by the Alcázar, but if anything the only resemblance seems to be the pointed roofs of the smaller towers.

The main courtyard, with a fountain and a really short cannon at the back that I thought was a bell.

The Throne Room. Come on, you guys didn't have to put those ropes across the thrones, I wasn't gonna try to sit there . . .

HELP! A reanimated suit of armor knows I go around making jokes about stuff I see in Spain!

Awesome photo idea of the landscape through one of the prettier windows. People who saw me take this photo waited, then took their own. I'm just saying.

View of the town from the top of the main tower (152 really narrow steps, felt like I was in a lighthouse) with the Guadarrama Mountains shrouded in clouds in the background. That cathedral looks pretty sweet from up here.

Guadarrama Mountains again, with the surrounding landscape. The sun was starting to set and I really liked the light in these photos.

Looking back down on the rest of the Alcázar

Awesome photo, I love how the sun is shining only on the town

I took so many photos trying to get this flag waving perfectly, but this is the best I got.

We spent an hour or so exploring the Alcázar, then another half hour waiting for the same inconsiderate group of German girls who had been holding us up the whole trip to come out so we could walk back to the bus and head back to Oviedo. We were 5 hours from home, so we didn't get back to town until 11:30 Sunday night, and since the buses weren't running anymore I didn't get back to the vivienda to eat dinner until midnight. Oh well, Monday was a holiday and we didn't have class, so I slept in and then went to the circus. More on that later perhaps.

Salamanca

In keeping with my recent habits of telling you all about my adventures a week after they happen, tonight and sometime in the hopefully near future I will be recounting the trip to Salamanca, Ávila, and Segovia that I went on the last weekend (October 31 and November 1). The first day of the trip was dedicated entirely to Salamanca, although the first half of that day was actually getting there from Asturias (about 5 hours, with bathroom stops). When we arrived in Salamanca we dropped our stuff off at the hostel and then took the bus into town, because it was a bit far. We got dropped off near a park and headed to the Plaza Mayor, which is the center of town. In one of my classes we are reading the letters Cortez wrote during his conquest of Mexico, and when he was describing the main plaza of Tenochtitlan (the Aztec capital city) he mentioned that it was at least twice the size of the Plaza Mayor in Salamanca, which the professor explained was thought at that time to be the largest square in Christendom. Also, Cortez studied at the University of Salamanca for a little while, so he would have had that as a frame of reference. Anyway, as you can see from the pictures, it wasn't the huge open space I was expecting for formerly being thought of as the largest in Christendom. I guess the rest of Christendom just had much smaller squares at the time.

Just of the bus, heading towards town. Salamanca has a much larger and more medieval looking old town than any other city we've been to so far

Foreigners in the Plaza Mayor, it probably would have looked bigger without all those stands selling books

Miguel and I in front of the Ayuntamiento

Colonnades around the edges of the Plaza Mayor

After a brief meeting we were given free time to go out and find lunch before a guided tour of the city, but since my two Mexican friends (Miguel y Victor) and I had brought our own sandwiches from home, we decided to set out and explore on our own. We ended up seeing most of the stuff that we would later visit on the guided tour, although we didn't necessarily know what we were looking at at the time. Although, since all of the guided visits are really just guided by the organizers from Oviedo reading stuff they have printed off the internet, they don't know that much more than the foreigners they are guiding. Anyway, on with the photo tour of Salamanca.

Picture from our wanderings, view of the (Old?) Cathedral down an old street

Former church, now a Pontifical University. Notice the Casa de las Conchas across from it

Artsy close-up of the Casa de las Conchas (shells), a former palace that is now a public library

The University of Salamanca, which is the oldest continuously operating university in Spain and one of the oldest in the world (founded in 1218). As I mentioned before, Hernan Cortez studied law here before leaving for the New World.

The main facade of the University of Salamanca. Legend has it that there is a frog hidden in the intricate stone-work and anyone who finds it will pass all of their exams. Unfortunately some of the souvenir shops in town have made this much easier by putting up pictures of the frog in which you can see it's general location and even selling little statues of it perched atop a skull, which is a major hint.

I found the frog! Suckers, looks like I don't need to go to class/study/do any more work this year! No but seriously, I considered not putting this up but I figure most of you reading this have already taken the last of your college exams, or will have by the time you ever make it to Salamanca. And you still might not find it in this close-up photo . . .

The New Cathedral of Salamanca, built in the 16th century. The Old Cathedral was built in the 12th century, but the two are connected, so it was hard for me to tell where one started and the other stopped.

Astronaut in the facade of the New Cathedral. No, the medieval Salamancans weren't prophets or time travels, this building was renovated/partially reconstructed in the 1970's

We got to take a tour through the back passages of the Cathedral(s) and their rooftops, so this is the view from one of the terraces looking away from town.

View of the New Cathedral and Old Cathdral (at the lower right) from the same terrace as before

Looking down on the altar of the New Cathedral from the catwalk

Hahaha that walkway was pretty narrow, the camera was against the wall for this photo. Also, look at my straight teeth Mom, I'm still wearing my retainers nightly!

View of the old town of Salamanca from another terrace

On the roof of Salamanca! That's the Pontifical University behind me

You may have noticed the long shadows in that last photo of me on the Cathdral terrace, at this point we headed back to the hostel to get ready for a night out on the town, a fixture of these AEGEE trips. The night wasn't much to write home about, we ate some kebab and went to a really crowded, overpriced bar, which I left early (at 2:30!) to go to bed since we had another full day of traveling ahead of us. Anyway, on the way back we walked across this old bridge which gave us a cool view of the town, it was a popular photo spot.

Pretty Spanish sunset. On to Ávila and Segovia tomorrow!

León Trip, Day 2

I decided to get up really early (7 AM) the next morning so that I could have first dibs on the two functioning toilets for the 40 plus guys in the hostel, as well as not having to wait for the shower. My plan worked, and I was the only person in the bathroom at the time, but unfortunately someone had left all the windows open in there over night, so it was about 40 degrees. The showers also had a water-saving feature that you see in many sinks in public restrooms, where you push a button for the water to come on and it runs for about 20 seconds and then shuts off. You can't select the temperature, and it's really hard to get a shower to warm up when you are only getting 20 second bursts of (freezing cold) water, so after a few minutes I gave up on the shower idea and went back to my warm bed for a few more hours. We ate breakfast in the hostel and then went outside (to the cold, why?) to wait for the whole group to gather, which took a little while.

Home Sweet Hostel

We walked back to the center of town to see the sights, and our first stop was the Casa Botines, which was designed by Antoni Gaudí. I'm not sure which came first, the Episcopal Palace of Astorga or the Casa Botines, but I could definitely pick up on some of the same design features that marked his work, especially the fairy-tale towers. I haven't done my research but I believe that both of these buildings are earlier works of Gaudí's, because they appear to me more conventional than his well known buildings in Barcelona like the Sagrada Familia and the Parque Güell. Could just be though that the people who commissioned these particular projects didn't want something quite so radical.

Casa Botines

Detail above the door, don't know the significance of a guy killing a giant lizard though

Statue of Gaudí on a bench overlooking his work, kind of begs foreigners to take photos with it

After looking at the Casa Botines for a while, we turned to our right to see our next attraction, the Palacio de los Guzmanes, where the nobles who ruled León lived when it was an independent kingdom. We got a guided tour of the palace by one of its employees, but for some reason this only included the courtyard. It was still pretty informative though, and I will point out some of the things he told us within the photo captions.

Palacio de los Guzmanes, with Casa Botines on the left. It is now a municipal building of León and as such most visitors are limited to the courtyard.

The courtyard, with the well in the center. The coat of arms of the Guzman family (snakes crawling out of a cauldron) can be seen on the right side. The glass windows enclosing the walkways on the second level was added after the building was renovated in the 1800's to serve its current purpose, and is composed of a variety of scenes from around the province of León. None of the columns on the first level are original, as the originals had deteriorated and were no longer structurally sound.

The gargoyles around the courtyard are original and came in pairs that were facing towards each other, which was really typical of the architect who designed this palace. They have been damaged by the weather extremes of the province, where it's really hot in the summer and really cold in the winter (and at night in the fall, as we found out)

After the tour of the Palacio de los Guzmanes it was around noon, and we were given free time until 4 PM to walk around the rest of León and find something to eat. We headed down the main street leading to the old town, the Calle Ancha (wide street, and it was, compared to most of the other streets in town) and checked out the Cathedral. I think I mentioned this before, but the Cathedral of León has nearly 1800 square meters of stained glass windows and is one of the best examples of this craft in the world. Being a Sunday, mass was going on, but the Cathedral was big enough that tourists were still walking around without really bothering anyone.

Pretty much the same picture as before, but in the daytime now

Many of the windows had a floral pattern, but this one was my favorite because it had people and animals. Probably scenes from the Bible, but I don't know which ones . . .

Looking straight up at the vaulted ceilings, very impressive

After leaving the Cathedral the group sort of split up, with many of the more hungover foreigners who had stayed out at the discotecas until 5 AM opting to sit around on benches. My friend Miguel and I, along with his Mexican friend Rene and a German girl who doesn't speak much Spanish, decided to go check out the Basilica de San Isidoro, which according to my guide book is also a very important shrine, and one of the stops on the Camino de Santiago. This route, from France to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, branches into two options somewhere east of Oviedo, so it passes through both Oviedo and León, and is marked by little gold seashells in the sidewalk. I think the route through León is more popular because I saw a ton of backpackers there with seashells hanging from their backpacks, which marks you as a pilgrim, but I haven't seen any in Oviedo.

Basilica de San Isidoro, I don't remember how old it was but it looks pretty old

I don't know how grave of a sin it is to take a photo of then inside of a Basilica during a Mass, but that's what I did . . .

At this point we headed back to the Cathedral plaza and met up with some other people, and set off looking for a place to eat lunch. This was easier said than done, because the majority of people wanted to get a menú (a multi-course meal, the actual menus are called "cartas"), but they couldn't find a place with one that was cheap enough for their taste. Our wanderings led us well off the beaten track into a neighborhood that was mostly under construction, at which point Miguel and I decided to split off and go back to a sandwich shop we had seen before. This was a delicious choice, and even more budget friendly than a cheap menú. Afterwards, since we were on our own, Miguel and I headed back towards the hostel to check out something I had seen on the map labeled "Casino". I didn't have very high hopes, because there are a few places in Oviedo called casinos that are shoe stores, but why not. To our surprise, this was a real casino, albeit much smaller than it's Vegas brethren. There was video poker/blackjack and a gaming room with table games that didn't open until 8 PM. Unfortunately this was all moot because you need your Spanish National Identity Card or a passport to enter, and we didn't bring ours along. Oh well, I guess they saved me some money with that rule.

Miguel reading a brochure about how to play blackjack in front of the casino

We still had like an hour and a half to kill before meeting up at the Casa Botines to go to the Museum of Contemporary Art, so we wandered back towards the old town and decided to follow the city walls into some of the older neighborhoods of León. We didn't really see anything of note, a few cool statues and some stray cats, and we ended up hanging out in the plaza in front of the Basilica de San Isidoro with some other people from our group until it was time to go to the meeting place.

Narrow medieval street

Fortunately for our tired legs, the bus was waiting at the Casa Botines, and it took us back to the hostel to collect our belongings before dropping us off in the new part of town where the museum is located. We made a quick stop at a 5 star hotel housed in an old monastery, and then walked a few blocks down to the museum. I want to tell you that this museum was weird, but I really feel like words are lacking to describe it so I'll try to comment on the pictures to give an idea of the place.

Parador San Marcos, cost you a cool 200 Euros a night

Entrance to the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo (MUSAC)

This exhibit was called "The White Night" - it was very surreal

Hahaha this picture gets me everytime. These little girls' mother told them to go stand next to the fat dead clown so she could take their picture. I captured a moment in time in which you can actually see the terrible childhood memories being formed. Also, notice the pools of glitter at the clown's feet.

No joke, this is all that was in this room . . .

Different artist, still strange though

This was only one wall of a whole room filled with clowns. At the time I just kept thinking about how freaked out anyone who is afraid of clowns (Shannon, Beth, those little girls from before) would be in this room, especially if it was dark when they came in and then the lights were turned on.

Anyway, I had a good time in the MUSAC, even if my shallow comments show how little I really "get" "art" (yeah, they're both in quotes, deal with it). At this point we got back on the bus and headed back to Oviedo, which may have taken a long time or may not have, I wouldn't know because I fell asleep. My next trip will be to Salamanca, Segovia, and Ávila, so look forward to much delayed updates about that in the near to distant future.