We
crossed out of Portugal into Castillo y León and the vast high
plateau of the interior. Good farming country no doubt but not very
exciting, although less arid here than further south. The
plain in Spain is mainly rather … plain!
But then we arrived in Salamanca, probably one of the most
interesting and beautiful cities of Spain or indeed Europe. Built
almost entirely out of a very fine local sandstone that carves well
(and preserves in the dry climate) this was one of the four or five
great medieval centres of learning in Europe. It still hums with
students today, thronging the gothic and baroque buildings of the
ancient university.
It is a city
filled with vast institutions, religious and secular, and all in this
honey coloured stone, intricately carved, that gives a unity to the
whole city, which well deserves its world heritage status. The
defensive walls are still largely in place, and a Roman era bridge
spans the wide river and flood plain to the south. There are two
cathedrals: the jewel like Romanesque building, retained when they
built a new much grander edifice beside it, turning the Catedral
Vieja effectively into a vast side chapel. What a beautiful survival
from this era, almost a thousand years old, a spare, well
proportioned, with simple vaulting and strange animal carvings. We
were lucky enough to attend a concert by an American university choir
here.
The main
university building, with soaring spires and a huge baroque portico,
almost outguns the cathedral in scale, but the pièce de résistance
is the Plaza Mayor, the grandest of grand squares, full of people
eating, drinking, cycling, meeting up, having chance encounters and
just generally being very Spanish. Lots of groups all just talking
at the same time, gesticulating and generally enjoying life.
We stayed in a
former palace opposite the Convento de San Esteban, yet another
magnificent complex. It has a fine transitional church with a huge
choir that accommodated over a hundred monks; and a two storey
cloister, full of wheeling screaming swallows and nesting storks.
It's obvious the Dominicans who built it didn't stint themselves like
other orders. This was perhaps the most impressive of many
splendours.
Our final stop
was in León, a smaller city, like a more modest version of
Salamanca, with a slightly ramshackle Plaza Mayor, and busy narrow
streets in the old town, including some excellent tapas places around
the Plaza de San Martin. We sat there on Friday evening as it
rapidly filled up with locals, starting their weekend in good
spirits. There is a surprising amount of the Roman wall surviving,
and a very fine Romanesque basilica, San Isidro. The cathedral has
some of the best stained glass in the world, dating back to the 13th
century, and there is the magnificent Convento de San Marcos, now a
parador, which is where we stayed. Its vast public rooms, a
cloister, and riverside terrace make this a great place to stay,
although the restaurant was disappointing.
But it was
beginning to feel like the end, and a good time to return home. We
travelled on quiet roads in the foothills of the Picos, past
abandoned coal mines, but mostly through lovely countryside, then the
narrow gorge that cuts right through the mountains. We stopped off
at Potes, a charming mountain village clinging to both sides of a
steep valley, then the quick run back into Santander, the ferry, and
home.
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