Walls and Skulls and Astronauts and Chocolate

Trip 6 - Avila, Salamanca,

Basically I haven't blogged about this trip yet because it was pretty ordinary and there wasn't a ton to say. But we went first to Avila. Avila is famous for walls surrounding all the old part of the city. While there, we went up on said walls and watched a parade/procession of sorts. It was pretty cool - it was the Day of Santa Teresa of Avila, so they were having a religious procession/festival.

The walls of Avila

Later that day we went to Salamanca. Salamanca is home to the University of Salamanca - the oldest in Spain and fourth oldest in the world. It has a super cool plataresque facade (yes, I did just use both those words AND I know what they mean, go me) and it is also home to Cathedrals (plural). There's two cathedrals connected - one is older than the other by about 300 years. They're both two different styles of architecture, so they're pretty cool to look at.

Old building? I think not... haha. This is carved around the door of the cathedral. The building is old, but this part of the carvings was redone in the 90s, and they carved an astronaut in to celebrate modern science. Another part shows a dragon eating an ice cream cone. Way cool.

This is the facade of the University of Salamanca. Ask me sometime - I can label all the plataresque characteristics for you. (we had a test today, so I know stuff now :P)

Casa de las Conchas
So there was this man whose daughter married nobility - thereby giving him new social status. To show off his new status to the world, he did this to his house. The conchas, or shells, are part of the family crest of the family his daughter married into. Show-off...

We spent the night in Salamanca, and visited Toro and Tordecillos the next day - two small towns with a lot of churches. Suffice it to say, we were ready to be done with the churches by the time we left. I really am starting to believe they want us to come home Catholic, with all the churches we visit. However, we did see the first little bit of Mass when in Avila, which was pretty cool, not going to lie.

Random picture of me in Tordecillo, before visiting a monastery - Lindsey took this and I really liked it. There was a really pretty view of a river up at the top of this street.