Salamanca y Avila

The next day, we had an excursion to the cities of Salamanca and Avila. We had to be at the bus station at 8 a.m. to make the two hour bus ride to Salamanca. We all arrived with our "bocadillos" (sandwiches) from our señoras and were ready to go.

It was a pretty early morning and the ride to Salamanca was quiet. Everyone sitting around me was asleep. But they don´t know what they were missing...the views of the countryside were gorgeous. I sat there listening to my ipod and taking them all in (yes Katy and Emily..I listened to your playlists ;)

When we got to Salamanca our first stop was the cathedral...well the two cathedrals. The city has two because they decided the first one was too small. So one is from the 12th century and I think the second was built in the 17th century. I was a little scared at first and having flashbacks of Toledo and the three HOUR tour of the cathedral there. But our tour guide was really cool and informative. Both of the cathedrals were amazing. The sheer age of the old cathedral amazed me. It was so cool to be standing somewhere that existed that long ago. And the newer cathedral was very extravagantly decorated and huge. On the outside there is a wall that was restored because of some damage, and the designers decided to put little stone statues of an astronaut and a devil eating ice cream to add some of their own history to the building...and they blend in very well with the whole building.

After the cathedral, we visited the University of Salamanca. It is the oldest university in Spain, and one of the oldest in Europe. We saw some of the oldest classrooms and the library, which was amazing.

We saw a couple of other buildings and then headed to the Plaza Mayor. There they set us free for about 2 1/2 hours. We sat in the plaza and ate our lunches on a bench there. Two old guys came up to us and welcomed us to Salamanca and wanted to know why we were there. This one guy was explaining to MacKenzie some of the history of the Plaza Mayor. After we finished eating, we explored the city and did some shopping. Everyone there was very friendly. Salamanca is a beautiful city.

Then we headed to Avila. Avila is known for being the home of St. Theresa (the Carmelite´s founder), its medieval walls that are still in tact and its dulce tipica (most of the cities in Spain have a sweet or pastry that they are known for) called yemas. We were only in Avila for an hour and we were starving...we had just enough time to get something to eat, buy some postcards, snap a few pictures and try some yemas. We tried the yemas with out even knowing what they were first. They are this little yellow ball that is kind of squishy (they were hard to pick up out of the box) with a little bit of sugar covering them. Turns out they are egg yolks baked in powdered sugar! Not my favorite pastry of the trip...yuck!

We arrived back in Segovia around 7 that night...and we had a ton of homework to do. We had been slacking for the previous two days and we had sooo much to catch up on. But seeing Salamanca and Avila made it a little bit more worth it!