Boog's Blog

Where we play tourist: The University, the New Cathedral, the Old Cathedral (name Nueva and Viaja- no saint name), Casa Lis an art museum

The university is quite old as any reader of medieval history or historical fiction likely knows. Focus on Medicine, Law and Theology with Philosophy not considered important or of value.

Graduation room (old desks), staircase with fine carvings, mudjehar ceilings are three of the highlights mentioned in the brochures. Big ceremony at graduation. Could not get into the main library.

Old cathedral. There are two and they are connected (joint ticket it turned out to our surprise). Mix of Roman and Gothic while the new Cathedral is Gothic and Renaissance.

The Vieja has painted walls, many still in good condition. Art historians among us: how were the pigments prepared and applied? Later egg tempera was used but has not survived well. Why the change to a less good application?

Casa Lis. A shout out to Jerome who suggested we not miss this, their favorite place in Salamanca. Art Nouveau and Art Deco. Very nice cafe as well. Had planned to do this one tomorrow but when we saw the cafe open went into the museum.

Major Toulouse-Latrec exhibit at the Casa Lis. Posters and paintings though all reproductions.

The door of forgiveness. Intricate, new cathedral, very special luminous stone.

Escaped Extremadura! Four days here in Salamanca. Yeah!. Injury recovery time needed. Avoidance of some really crappy accommodations needed. Two nights at the NH and two nights at the Parador. We were not able to add two nights to the Parador as this is a big holiday weekend, all Saints Day, then Day of the Dead.

Mornings now in the low forties, days in the upper fifties. Very cold wind today as we are not as yet adapted to the change.

Moving away now from the heavily Iberico pig area. Still pigs here of course but the number of farms fewer. Different terrain, maybe more expensive land.

Today we are out of the mountains; rolling hills and a great university town with much to see. We ate some good late breakfast food and then walked about for a couple of hours getting a general lay of the city. A few spots remembered. Tomorrow we will tackle the two big cathedrals, the old and the “new.”

Salamanca, being a University city is full of young and middle aged. Not all old and empty like the rural areas.

Went into one cathedral but we decided to wait until tomorrow for a visit. I walked around the ticket window (some fussing from the attendant) and peeked. Said to her, looks like Leon. Yes, she said.

Speaking of ticket windows. In the North and other places I do not remember ever having to pay to go into a Catholic cathedral. Into the museum or underbelly, yes, but not into the church to look around. Now it is generally 5 euro.

As I remember the past, Catholic places free entry, Protestant places generally charged, too few other faiths sampled to have a good summary for them.

As Judi said, they can build a bridge for 2000 years and we can’t even build one for 50 years.

Late afternoon nap and early (8pm) dinner at Vinodiario. An excellent meal, especially compared with the last few days.

For our records and as of general interest here at the pics not possible without bandwidth.

But first an unfortunate update. QB slipped on the shower last night. It appears nothing broken but very short , elbow, and wrist

Some pics we want included in the blog

Dinner last night inedible. Frozen paella. We had to tell the owner it was good and we were not hungry. Casa was freezing. North of us very disappointed.

Two days in a row that we both liked the walk. Not easy as in the small (1000 meters) mountains. Freezing in early morning now and warm as sun rises over hills. Not easy but beautiful and almost all off road.

Few pictures on this post as we have no T-Mobile signal and virtually no Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi is sufficient for a text but not for putting in pictures. Picture addendum tomorrow.

Entered Castile y Léon today and both the signage and direction arrows improved dramatically. Castile is clearly marketing the Camino.

The road is an old Roman road going back to 217 BcE. All along the way there are military markers essentially vertical posts of concrete marking the route. When we put in pictures they will be in the pictures.

A detail from a few days ago or weeks is now clear. The reason that all the churches are closed is that there are virtually no priests available. Careful examination of the paper on the front of a church will tell you which towns have masses on which day. None have mentioned pilgrim masses which are frequent on the main Camino route.

The Casa Rural tonight is all ours. The owner makes dinner for us. Paella. The town, the largest for the next couple of days, has one bar and almost no people. The next two each have less than 100.

Due to minor injuries, remote mountains and upcoming days of rain we modified our route for the next few days. Will skip the rain and mountain walk and go directly to Salamanca. We will end up with four days in Salamanca.

Up and up into the small mountains.

Spent some time in the lovely town of Hervas. A tourist town due to the well preserved Jewish section. One of the many interesting spots: the Jewish Bridge. Stream running under, cobbled bridge over. QB has good pic of me on the bridge.

Stopped for cafe and once again the continual screaming of the Spanish, even to those sitting a chair away. Very odd and disconcerting.

Random questions: do the Spanish use only their own olive oil? A fellow traveller was appalled when I mentioned adulterated olive oil. Similarly, do they drink non-expresso coffee using primarily the (to us) lousy tasting blend from the Canary Islands?

Long downhill leaving Hervas but made up for by a longer uphill afterwards. Significant net gain of altitude and sore legs.

When we reached Baño de Montemayor I saw an interesting building. What is that I asked to the QB. “Some old thing. Not climbing up there.”

In Banos de Montemayor visited the thermal baths. Apple phone is very limited in the way it allows sharing – cannot create a public link as one can with Google Photos. Trying this QB code approach

Roman Bath pictures via QR code

Went to the baths. Actually two of them which turn out to be the same, just different buildings connected underground by water. The bath itself turns out to be just a warm swimming pool, 8 euro for an hour. I asked the temperature before forking out: 35 C. I thanked them and left. Not surprised. Have been seeing this for decades. BTW, the incoming water is 43C which they cool.

After Far too much effort getting the link using Google Photos here are some pictures of the Jewish section. https://photos.app.goo.gl/vUEzftJBzdZ3G41T9

Lovely walking day mostly off road. Some tricky navigation due to farm fields.

When I mentioned to someone that the orange juice here is spectacular, a Valencia local told us that the oranges here, Sevilla oranges, are really just transplanted Valencia oranges. Did not verify. Well, the fresh juice each morning is fab and one needs to moderate the amount for obvious sugar reasons. In the same vein, do the Brits use both types when making home made marmalade?

Entertainment in the morning was sheep herding. Large flock being guided by dog and person whistling.

Accommodations were again an experience. We arrived at the proper address. Needed to call someone to open the Casa apartments. “five minutes” meant 15 or a bit more. A woman shows up to open the registration office. Keys don’t work. A car drives up and another woman gets out to show the first how to use keys. After trying one, two, many she says she does not have a key. We are to walk ahead to the apartment. She follows by car. Eventually shows us how to turn on the power and then says we will have to go back later for passport registration. Another person shows up at the door explaining that he is not for the passport but has an adjoining unit and the manager called up to have him send me to the office. Nothing is really clear except that QB is tired and hurting and does not find this very amusing. Better you were not here.

Dinner at a simple bar, standard menu. Never seems to change in the local regional bars and restaurants.

Coulda been worse.

Rest day. Some minor touristing and some shopping for the road lunch tomorrow.

Today is Monday. Everything is closed. Just like yesterday, Sunday, everything is closed. Will open after we leave.

Nice cool morning, mid-40s. Warmed up soon thereafter.

One tourist attraction is the roman aquaduct

View with QB

Much of the world today:

A large town tonight: 40K inhabitants.

A very big change of pace. After a few nights in small rural (QB interjected “dumps”) we have 2 nights in an enormous Parador. Converted 15th century monastery. We accidentally entered via the garage. The garage is basically an elevator that takes the cars down. You drive into the elevator. Spaces for 130+ cars. We went in as if we were a car. There is another entrance somewhere but we haven’t found it.

Very cool morning with QB now wearing a very special hat. Look through the pictures and you will see a hat you will rarely see. A gift from Bruce. An original New York lifeguard hat. I got one as well, but a different design. As we were walking East today QB was very happy. The hat helped against the eastern sun in the morning.

The walk was challenging today as about 5 miles were almost a continuous uphill at a moderate or low grade but never relenting.

Plasencia is another walled city though much newer: 12th century.

Be sure to blow up the pic and see QB in her very special hat.

After a nice break and snack at the Parador bar a bit of a rest for tired legs. Great room with a couch, a chair etc. Nice change!

A wander through town: The 13th century archeological site closed until Wednesday. The cathedral wanted a lot of money to go in and was rude when I said I was old and asked about a peligrino mass. Lost my business!

A lovely walk on a cool bright day with a bit of wind. Not a flat walk no matter what the books say.

First a review of last evening. At dinner (restaurant) two fellow travelers joined our table. One Catalan and a young man from Venezuela. She was a pisser, just happy with everything, did many caminos, always smiling and laughing, a pleasure to be with. He of the 1 percent in his country. His father, a lawyer, connected to a corrupt government, his explanation of how he could afford this trip given the inflation and currency controls of his country. He now works as a consultant at EY; hard to believe he could add value to a multinational. Decent English and good to chat with.

Neither had any opinion of Biden. May drop this question as Biden is not well known in the thought of sense. Generally get “it is complicated.” Did not ask the Irish biker going North to South. He too was good to chat with.

“Chica” discussion. It is clear that “chica” in both Spain and Venezuela is a normal term which can be applied to women of all ages. This topic was well discussed. My impression is that this is not so in California (I don’t know about Mexico). QB says we need to discuss this with women of different generations in California as their view may be very different than males and from views elsewhere.

No idea what this agricultural planting is. A type of (maybe bolted) cabbage??

A cultural item at least in this region. At the bars and restaurants everyone, and we mean everyone, is shouting all the time. Never speaking in a normal or constrained voice. Generally uncomfortable to be sitting at an adjacent table. Will have to ask one of the fellow travelers at an appropriate time. Very strange and very annoying.

All four gates still preserved. The Alcazar was a disappointment. Closed ruins.

Typical medieval hill town. Always a treat for walkers at the end of along schlep.

Tonight we are in a little pension with shared bathroom. Very basic. As tomorrow is Sunday I went shopping for food to prepare and eat in the shared kitchen. The nearest restaurant is not near.

Quite a cool morning where jackets were required. Eventually warmed up and they were shed.

Rolling hills, scenery very different today. Basically foothills, green, very rocky. Path was mostly on the road and when it veered off it looked too treacherous so we kept to the safer bits.

The manager of the hostel remarked, when we asked if the kiwi was local, “yes, all we have is fruit, animals, and solar energy.” The area is desolate of people or any industry. Air is, of course, quite clean except when the animal loaded trucks pass by.

Merino wool (oveja merina) is one of their major business trade items here. Very very important for the economy we were told.

We passed a very large reservoir and looked up the details in tripadvisor:

“La Almendra is one of the largest reservoirs in the country (86.5 kms. when full) and has the highest dam (202 meters). It dams up the Tormes River before it flows into the Duero. When we were there in March 2017 the water level was critical due to the dry winter. At the time of this writing, September 14 2017 it must be almost dry.”

Yes, some water but clearly most of it gone. Green grass growing on the surface and indications of roman overpasses.

The accommodation is in an albergue. We have the only couples room, the other rooms have bunk beds, one large room with 10 beds a few rooms with just bunk beds. In the courtyard, here, many chickens, sheep, large dog, and a horse. They shared the outdoor laundry facility. Hand washing and sun drying. Others at the albergue sharing same.

QB just spent a considerable amount of time mopping up the floor of the albergue where we are staying for the night. Flooded shower, “inundado” in Spainish. Have learned the word all too well.