Avila, Tordesillas, Salamanca, olé!

Catedral in Salamanca with Rachel, Meg and Alice

Last weekend we had a Hamilton-sponsored day trip to Avila and an overnight in Tordesillas and Salamanca. They're all a couple hours outside Madrid and we were supposed to board the group bus at 10. But that morning when my alarm went off, I naturally pressed off instead of snooze. I didn't have enough time to make it to the Hamilton bus via metro, so my subdirector called me and told me to catch my own autobús. By the time I had taken the long trip on the metro to the bus station and the long trip on the bus I'd run through half the music on my iPod and it was about 4pm in Avila. Oopsy! Avila is well-known for the preservation of its medieval cathedral and the "muralla" that surrounds the city. This wall looks like a fortress and is really cool because you can walk around on top of it.

Rachel, Alice and I on top of the wall!

Unfortunately I didn't see much of Avila because we left about two hours after I got there. But it's okay because the next morning I was actually EARLY for the bus to Tordesillas and Salamanca, after hearing the day before that we would be visiting more cathedrals, a medieval market y UNA BODEGA! What's a bodega you ask? A vineyard!
THE GRAPES
Tordesillas is kind of known for vineyards I guess, and we visited one that has a very large, very far underground tourist tour that we went on! We had to wear like cotton disposable suits to cover our clothes and got to tour the machinery of the plant as well as the old-time casks and wine cellars. The tour was a bit long and VERY cold underground, but it was a ton of fun and I learned a bit about wine. Plus we got to taste their Vino Tinto and Vino Blanco at the end of the tour! And, as always, there was chorizo to go with the wine.

Tordesillas also had some really beautiful old buildings and a very pleasant river that ran through it, a charming countryside oasis that is very close to Valladolid, one of the programs I was considering applying to before I chose the program I'm in. It was a very sleepy town and odd to think of myself there for the semester instead of MADRID. I love Madrid. Anyways, then we went to Salamanca! It's famous for having one of the oldest universities in Europe and also having two cathedrals in the same town that are connected to each other. Needless to say, we toured both. It was really interesting to see the contrast between the Romanic art and architecture next to the 16th century cathedral built adjacent and 300 years later. The old cathedral had this incredible retablo, a gilded, illustrated Biblical text to help the unlettered population.
And they both had amazing views (see first picture). Plus our fearless leader and know-it-all guide Joaquin led us around and told us interesting things about all the cathedrals we saw (for the last time, very sad). My personal favorite building we saw was a Saint Claire cloisters in Tordesillas. It was smaller and not as overwhelmingly carved, plus I'm named after Saint Claire so that was cool. It had tons of arab influence in the color scheme, tiling, painting, archways, geometric carvings in walls and floors AND it had these amazing paintings on the ceilings of really interesting geometric dragon heads on the intersecting sections of the vaulted ceilings. So cool. Unfortunately no pictures, maybe I'll draw it for you someday. Also in Tordesillas we got to spend a couple hours at this massive medieval market. The whole town was there, and half the people were dressed up in medieval peasant gear. For some reason all my photos of people dressed up in peasant gear are actually small children because they are cuter, but here you go:

The market had tons of cool jewelry, crafts, food, cheese, the local specialty grape juice, clothing (especially the ever-popular gypsy pants! I'm waiting til we go to Morocco so I can get them for cheaper) and MORE FOOD. I ate some homemade chorizo that was amazing, there were a lot of pastries around too. I also bought myself some artisan pottery that's very simple but was cheap and cool. I loved the market, we stayed there like all day, which was long enough to see a gypsy sword dance. Awesome.

Then we had a wonderful stay at this very very nice 5 star hotel that had a lap pool, hot tub and INCREDIBLE food. It's called the Paradour. We ate a huge dinner together and as usual it was a few courses plus a good house vino tinto. Plus the continental breakfast had soy milk, soy yogurt, and gluten free bread, muffins and pastries. I didn't know what to do with myself so I put a lot of it in my purse for later.

So needless to say, I am loving España, and I especially love traveling by autobús. More to come soon! I'm not traveling again until Halloween weekend when we will be going to BARCELONA with the whole group. Hopefully by autobús but I'll understand if it's by plane because it's a long way. In between I have a few day trips planned and general explorations of the city. Hope all is well with you!

Love Natalie