Salamanca

This past weekend ISA took us to El Escorial, Salamanca, and Ávila. It was really great to get to see more of Spain!

Friday we headed out for El Escorial to see where all the Kings and mothers of Kings tombs are housed, along with other royal family members. Walking through the Pantheon within El Escorial and being surrounded by dead royals was a super creepy feeling, yet at the same time pretty cool. The cathedral there was also beautiful, and apparently the wait to get married in it is around 5 years long! At the end of the tour, we stopped in a room that was designed for telling secrets. One person stands in a corner with another person in the opposite corner, and the two can speak into the corners to tell secrets without the rest of the room hearing! Super cool.

El Escorial

The grounds around El Escorial were beautiful and the view was as well. After wandering around the gardens for awhile, we got back on the bus to Salamanca.

When we got to Salamanca we wandered around the city for a little, with Casey's friend that is studying abroad there for the semester as our tour guide. After resting a little bit that evening, we went out to tapas for dinner at a muy barrato place. Since Salamanca is a small town, everything was much cheaper there, which was a very nice change. That night just about everyone from our program went out together to see the nightlife of the University town.

Salamanca!

The next morning we had a tour of the city for 4 hours, but only half of the program made it out of bed. We saw all of the great sights of Salamanca, including one of my favorite Cathedrals and a great view from the top of it of the city.

Tyler, me and Carly

When we first got to Salamanca I noticed that there were frogs everywhere in all the giftshops. On our tour, we found out that there is a frog hidden within a wall, and if you find it you have good luck in your studies! I have always loved frogs so it made me love the city even more.

La rana is on the skull to the left!

Salamanca has the oldest university in Spain, and one of the oldest in Europe. It was cool to see such an old university still very popular and in use! There are around 60,000 students that go there.

An original classroom

While we were touring the upper part of the cathedral, we saw una boda taking place! It was gorgeous, but we all felt kind of weird creeping on it from the top.

La boda!

That afternoon, a few of us went to the Art Nouveau and Art Deco Museum. The "art" was mainly an odd collection of dolls, and some were actually really creepy! We were pretty speedy getting through the collections, but the museum itself was a beautiful building! The front was made out of stained glass and we were there at sunset, so it was an absolutely gorgeous view.

Stained glass sunset

For dinner pretty much all the girls went for pizza, and we ate in the street to people watch. Later in the evening we all went out again for our last night in Salamanca.

Plaza Mayor

Sunday morning we headed out to Ávila, which is famous for being surrounded by a giant wall. Everyone was very tired and sick of guided tours, so most of us just wandered around while the Spanish tour guide spouted off random facts about the grand wall. Ávila wasn't my favorite place, but the wall was cool!

Ávila wall

The trip overall was very fun and it was nice to get away from the big city feel of Madrid, but it also made me appreciate all Madrid has to offer.