Salamanca is a university city in the Castile and León region of western Spain, 200 km west of Madrid, with a population of 145,000 — one of the finest examples of Spanish Renaissance and Baroque urban architecture in the world, with the oldest and most prestigious university in the Iberian Peninsula (founded 1218 by King Alfonso IX of León, older than all universities in England except Oxford and Cambridge). The city's extraordinary Plaza Mayor (1729-1756, designed by architect Alberto de Churriguera — the finest Baroque civic square in Spain and one of the most beautiful in Europe, with 88 arches and 246 medallion portraits of Spanish monarchs, conquistadors and intellectuals) anchors a UNESCO World Heritage city centre (designated 1988) of golden sandstone buildings — the Cathedrals (the Old Cathedral, 12th century Romanesque, and the New Cathedral, 15th-18th century late Gothic and Plateresque, sharing a wall), the Casa de las Conchas (1517, the famous building with 300 stone scallop shells embedded in its facade — scallop = pilgrim's badge on the Camino de Santiago), the Pontifical University, and the famous Frog of Salamanca (a stone frog carved somewhere in the facade of the Old School of Medicine — finding it without help is considered a good luck charm for student exam success). Salamanca has the largest university student population as a percentage of total residents of any Spanish city — the student presence gives the city the most vibrant café, bar and nightlife culture in Castile.
The Salamanca Plaza Mayor (1729-1756, Alberto de Churriguera — the most prolific of the three architect Churriguera brothers whose ultra-ornate Baroque style was so extreme it created its own architectural term: Churrigueresque) is the Spanish plaza at its most magnificent — the golden sandstone arcade runs 88 arches around the entire square; 246 medallion portraits in the upper frieze include the Catholic Monarchs, Christopher Columbus, Hernán Cortés, Cervantes, and Francisco Franco (added 1964, now the source of political controversy); the square functions as Salamanca's collective living room where everyone — students, professors, elderly couples — sits at the terrace cafés from 8am to midnight.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Casa de las Conchas (House of Shells, 1517, built by Rodrigo Arias Maldonado, a Knight of the Order of Santiago) is the most photographed building in Salamanca — the golden sandstone facade is embedded with approximately 300 carved stone scallop shells (the symbol of the Camino de Santiago and the Order of Santiago); the wrought-iron window grilles, the corner coat of arms, the courtyard (Gothic with Plateresque details) and the public library within (free entry) make it one of the finest early 16th-century nobleman's palaces in Spain; the Camino de Santiago passes directly in front of this building.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Salamanca Old Cathedral (Catedral Vieja, 1102-1220, Romanesque, with the extraordinary Torre del Gallo — Cock Tower — with its unique Byzantine dome of stone ribs, the finest Romanesque dome in Spain) and the New Cathedral (Catedral Nueva, 1513-1733, Late Gothic/Plateresque/Baroque — begun in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, still unfinished when the 1755 Lisbon earthquake damaged its tower) are connected internally — visitors enter through the New Cathedral and pass directly into the Old; the Frog of Salamanca is carved in the Old School of Medicine facade across the plaza.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe University of Salamanca (founded 1218, the oldest in the Iberian Peninsula, one of the oldest in the world) has a facade (1534) that is the finest example of Plateresque architecture in Spain — the Plateresque style (from platero, silversmith) is the characteristically Spanish early Renaissance ornamental style where the stone surface is covered so densely with decorative carving it resembles elaborate silverwork; the facade has the portrait of the Catholic Monarchs in the central relief; Christopher Columbus came here to present his plan for the Indies to a university commission in 1486; Fray Luis de León lectured here.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Salamanca student tapas culture (the city's most famous bar street, the Calle Van Dyck, plus the streets around the Plaza Mayor — Calle Meléndez, Calle Prior) serves the best free tapas in Castile with every drink ordered — the Salamanca specialties: hornazo (a stuffed pastry pie filled with pork loin, chorizo and hard-boiled egg, traditionally eaten on Easter Monday at the Campo de Los Alijares picnic; hornazo is THE food of Salamanca), farinato (a black sausage of bread, lard and onion, fried crispy, a Salamanca-area specialty), cured jamón ibérico from the Guijuelo producers (30 km south — some of the finest jamón ibérico de bellota in Spain), and clarete (the slightly pink local wine of the Arribes del Duero wines).
La Clerecia (the Royal College of the Company of Jesus, 1617-1755, the finest Baroque church in Salamanca — the 12,000 sq m complex was started by the Jesuits before their 1767 expulsion from Spain and is one of the most monumental Baroque complexes in Castile) has a tower-climb experience (Las Torres Clerecía) where visitors ascend the twin Baroque towers for the finest aerial view of Salamanca's golden roofscape, the Plateresque cathedrals and the Tormes River plain beyond; the interior (open for visits) has an extraordinary Baroque coffered ceiling.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Convento de San Esteban (Dominican convent, 1524-1610, on the Plaza del Concilio de Trento adjacent to the cathedrals) has the most elaborate Plateresque church facade in Salamanca (the retablo/altarpiece of the facade depicts the martyrdom of Saint Stephen in a relief of extraordinary sculptural density) and the interior Baroque altarpiece by José de Churriguera (1693, the eldest Churriguera brother's masterwork, a gilded retablo of such complexity and height that it took 15 years to build); Christopher Columbus presented his plan for the Indies to a council of Dominican scholars here in 1487.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideGuijuelo (30 km south of Salamanca, in the Sierra de Béjar foothills) is the jamón ibérico capital of Castile — the town of 5,600 people has more than 20 curing houses producing jamón ibérico de bellota (from pigs that are 75-100% pure black iberian, raised on acorns during the autumn montanera) from the local Sierra de Béjar, Sierra de Gredos and Dehesa extremeña pig farms; the Guijuelo jamón is lighter and less salty than the Jabugo (Huelva) equivalents — the altitude (1,000 m) and cold, dry mountain air create a distinct curing microclimate; curing house visits and tastings available.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Puente Romano (the Roman Bridge of Salamanca, 1st century AD, 27 surviving arches of the original 26-arch Roman structure rebuilt in subsequent centuries, crossing the Tormes River 300 m south of the cathedral quarter) at golden hour (6-8pm depending on season) is the finest view of Salamanca — the twin cathedral towers, the New Cathedral's Baroque lantern and the Old Cathedral's Byzantine Cock Tower are lit gold by the late afternoon sun reflected in the Tormes River; the Roman boar sculpture (the Berrao, an Iron Age stone boar, pre-Roman) stands at the bridge entrance.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuidePeña de Francia (1,732 m, the highest peak of the Sierra de Francia, 75 km south of Salamanca) is topped by a Dominican sanctuary and monastery that has been a pilgrimage destination since 1434 when a French pilgrim discovered a hidden image of the Virgin; the mountain road (the last 2 km on a steep access track) has panoramic views across Castile, the Gredos range, Portugal and the Extremadura plain; the sanctuary restaurant serves the finest mountain lamb in Salamanca province; the descent passes through the Sierra de Francia valleys.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideLa Alberca (the village of 1,100 inhabitants in the Sierra de Francia, 90 km from Salamanca, Spain's first officially designated National Heritage Village — the declaration that started the Conjunto Histórico-Artístico designation system in 1940) has the finest surviving vernacular architecture in Castile — the overhanging timber-framed houses with stone ground floors, granite columns and carved wooden balconies draped with strings of peppers and garlic, the medieval stone square with its stone cross, the unusual tradition of a live pig roaming free through the village streets all year (the San Antón pig, released on 17 January, which belongs to the whole village community and is raffled off on the saint's feast day).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideMiranda del Castañar (a perfectly preserved medieval walled village, 30 km from La Alberca, with intact 13th-century walls, the pentagonal tower, the castle ruins and the main street of Gothic houses in the Sierra de Francia chestnut forest) and Mogarraz (the village of 300 people where artist Florencio Maíllo painted 388 portraits of all living residents in 2012, which are displayed on the facades of every house — a unique open-air portrait museum where every building is someone's face).
The return to Salamanca for the golden hour — the view from the terrace of the Convento de Las Úrsulas (northeast of the historic centre, a slightly elevated position looking across the old city) gives the finest view of the cathedral complex at dusk; then the farewell dinner in the Plaza Mayor arcade restaurants with the square fully lit at night (the golden sandstone of the arcades glows under the period lanterns — the most beautiful lit plaza in Spain) with lechazo (roast suckling lamb, the Castilian Sunday feast dish) and Ribera del Duero reserva red wine.