Salamanca celebrates the 800th birthday this year, in 1218 the university was founded, the oldest in Spain and one of the oldest in whole Europe! And still it attracts thousands of students all over the world to study in this magical and historical place! Nearly the whole city center consists of university buildings and libraries, amazing architecture, built on sand stone that creates a special charme. In between, original student pubs, little bakeries and some carnicerias where you can find the famous jamón. And the most beautiful Placa Major of whole Spain is in Salamanca - having seen this, you don't need to see the Placa Major in Madrid... The beauty of this special city attracts not only students but also thousands of tourists, especially in the week before Easter... Impossible for us to record in these conditions! We would have to stay one more day to get up early and film in better conditions. And it was the best decision!
The "real" Salamanca!
Salamanca at 6 in the morning has an incredible atmosphere! It was still dark and quiet like in the night, even birds were still sleeping! Empty streets, only some "early-birds" were crossing and a couple street cleaners were brushing the small cobble stone streets in a smooth and steady movement. One of them indicated us the best spots to record and we trusted him, who could know the streets and squares better than him? The recording was hard because a very mean wind made it impossible not to die of cold. Google analysing "minus 1 felt temperature" combined with my tiredness from getting up at 5h made it quite a challenge to record in my concert dress. And I got a cold the days after, but never mind, we did some nice shots and we had enough ginger tea and handkerchiefs in the caravan... After the recording was done, I was in desperate need of something hot to bring my fingers and toes back to life and have something warm in the stomach to start the day... But everything was closed! Of course, we are in Spain and time is different here, Spanish people like to celebrate late and sleep long the next day. (And I understand them!). So, we walked and walked nearby a dozen of closed cafes until we met again "our" street cleaner. We didn't have to explain a lot (I might have looked frozen and desperate enough...) and he showed us a tiny cafe, named "croissanteria" that had just opened! Fresh croissants, still warm and with melting chocolate inside (like in France!! And that's the highest compliment...) and freshly brewed café con leche! We were in heaven and I couldn't tell how many hours we spent there, how many cups of coffee and incredible number of these best croissants made us return back to warm life...
Even the gasoline stations in Salamanca are beautiful!!
Storks in Spain
On the way back to the caravan, we discovered a stork's nest on the top of a church next to Placa Major! In Northern Spain, we had seen so many storks like nowhere else in Europe, somehow climatic conditions are so healthy to offer great conditions for them to live (and have many children themselves:-)... so, even in cities, you can meet these beautiful animals!