Chocolate Epiphany in Salamanca, Spain! - Salamanca, Spain
Salamanca, Spain
We left the ship this morning and pointed the bus due east, motoring across remote, flat pastureland and through quiet, Spanish farming and ranching towns where people have pursued life in ways largely unchanged for centuries.
Our objective was Salamanca, a major city in the Spanish province of Castile-Leon with a long and respectable history inexorably linked with its university. It's the home of Spain's first and most prestigious university, which had its start in the 13th century, a period that birthed venerable houses of learning all around Europe including Coimbra in Portugal (which we visited earlier on our trip), Oxford, Cambridge, Padua, Naples, Siena, and Toulouse, to name a few. Today, the university lends its character to Salamanca still, and as we explored the town, the flow of students through the medieval streets of the old quarter was conspicuous and lively.
When we arrived, Scott and I set out from the hotel for the day to plan our walk. We had a projected route gleaned from various travel guides and a past visit that formed our foundation. It was a brisk morning - Salamanca sits at over 2000 feet above sea level on a huge Spanish central meseta or plain - but the sun provided dazzling spotlights on the warm golden sandstone from which much of the old city was built.
The Plaza Mayor (main square) is one of the most impressive in Spain, arguably in Europe, built in the typical quadrangle pattern with picturesque arcades on all four sides. With over 30,000 students, the University has buildings all over the city, but the ornate façade of the main entrance is what draws the admiration of most visitors. Sandstone's soft contours allow maximum creativity for sculptors and stone masons. Plateresque style is a combination of influences from throughout 16th century Europe, including Moorish. The combination of soft sandstone and plateresque have made Salamanca one of the best places in Spain to see classic plateresque, and the university façade is a celebration of detail, symbolism, and flourish in stone.
The Romans were here long before the university, and we crossed the bridge they built here that has lasted over 2000 years, 15 of its 26 arches still from the 1st century AD Roman construction. From the far side of the river, the sun continued to spotlight the old city, highlighting the golden spires of the gothic cathedral, towering above the rest of Salamanca.
We returned to the cathedral after lunch on a guided tour. Our guide explained how the cathedral was really two churches in one. The original cathedral had been condemned in the 16th century to make way for a new one. But the women of the city protested the demolition of the beloved old cathedral, so a compromise resulted in joining the taller, newer Gothic-style cathedral to the older, Romanesque-style structure. After explaining the rigorous examination procedure a university doctoral candidate endured during the Middle Ages, including paying for a city-wide celebration if he was confirmed, our guide led us to the unlikely image of an astronaut carved into one of the ornate, plateresque facades, legacy of a 20th century artisan involved in a renovation project.
Our fondest memory of Salamanca, however, is reserved for the Chocolateria Valor, which we visited while planning our walk. Feeling a bit peaked, we were looking for an energy surge when we spotted the Valor sign and remembered that our guide had mentioned the shop on the bus as we arrived.
Chocolaterias in this part of Spain are famous for their deep-fried churros, dipped in a cup full of thick liquid chocolate. Our guide, however, had specifically recommended the Luna Llena specialty, a scoop of chocolate ice cream drowned in a cascade of white chocolate syrup. This is not your ordinary chocolate dessert. I think it's safe to say that Scott and I will never again see chocolate in the same light. The chocolate ice cream was superb, but the white chocolate syrup was divine, an ambrosia of chocolateness that redefines the sensory celebration of "chocolate". It's entirely possible that this one discovery is alone worth the price of the trip!