Spain Day 3: Zamora and Leon en route to Oviedo

 

We woke up Monday morning and hit the road.  Our first stop was in Zamora. We headed to the Cathedral Museum because we had read about its tapestries.  In this non-descript museum (which we had to ourselves) in this tiny town in Northwest Spain, one of the world's most significant collections of 15th and 16th Flemish tapestries is housed. 

There were about 20 tapestries and most of them were huge, no doubt taking countless hours/days/weeks/months to create.  The color on these particular tapestries were so well preserved!

Dave, Seth and Sheralyn soaking it in. 

Many experts describe this collection as the leading medieval collection of tapestries in the world. They tell of the Trojan War, Hannibal's Campaign and of Tarquin the Proud. 

The Cathedral of Zamora.  This was constructed in the 12th century and overlooks the Duero River.

From there, we went to Leon!

The Leon Cathedral from the 13th century.

This Gothic cathedral contains the best stained glass outside of France.

Let's go inside to see....

Seeing that massive Rose window from the inside with the sun shining through is 😲

The cathedral has 737 stained-glass panels.

Travis, Sheralyn, Seth, Cari and Dave reading about the carved wooden choir.

The burial spot of Bishop Martin Fernandez, friend and confidant of Alfonso X, the king of Castile and Leon from 1252-1284. 

All that sight-seeing made us hungry!  So we stopped for lunch at a little place called Jabugo.

Cheers!

Yum!

Then we toured the town.

The Three Amigos

Kind of a cool statue! 

Dave and I spending a little time with Antoni Gaudi outside of his Museo Casa Botines.

The outside of the church in Plaza San Isidoro.

Legend has it that the far right door of this chapel is a puerta del perdon or "door of forgiveness."  For those pilgrims traveling by foot along the El Camino to Santiago that became too weak or sick to finish the trek, they could stop here, pass through or touch this door and gain absolution.

The relief above the door is of the Ascension into Heaven.

Always fun to see the El Camino markers along the way.

After thoroughly exploring the sights of Leon, we stopped at Holy Cow for a delicious treat!

And then made our way to Oviedo for the night.

And enjoyed a delicious dinner!

We took a little break from Spanish food.... and had a princess burger instead 🤣

Another jam-packed day of amazing historic Spanish sights.....

Lots of laughter, lots of learning, lots of fun.

Full hearts and full tummies...... goodnight from Oviedo.

Spain Day 2: Salamanca

 

On Day 2, we woke up in beautiful Salamance and set out to explore!

We made our way to Plaza Mayor.

The way that we do our trips is that each couple is "in charge" of a couple of the days so that no one person has to do all the research.  Dave and I were in charge of the first couple days of the trip.  So here I am leading our group with the Rick Steve's walking tour.

With our awesome friends in Plaza Mayor, built from 1729 to 1755. Glad we soak in the history together!

There are several different El Camino routes, but this whole area comprises those routes, so we would always keep an eye out for the El Camino markers.

Beautiful Salamanca with Casa de las Conchas in the background.

Casa de las Conchas is one of Salamanca's most famous landmarks as it's facade contains more than 300 scallop shells of St. James which honors the Camino pigrimage route which passes through this area.  The church to the left is La Clerecia Church.  It is nicknamed the "Stairway to Heaven" due to it's 200 stairs that go to the top of the tower, which we of course had to do!

Before climbing the "Stairway to Heaven", we bopped into the Casa de las Conchas and loved this awesome view of the La Clerecia Church from inside the open courtyard. 

Some cool views from the top!

Next we made our way to the University of Salamanca, the oldest in Spain (est. is 1218).  Columbus himself came here!

Sheralyn in the University of Salamaca square next to Fray Luis de Leon, who lived from 1527-1591 and was a famous academic here and translated part of the Bible into Castilian.  He is now honored for his ability to maintain the independence of academia in the face of politics.

There is a famous facade in the University Square and legend has it that if you can find the tiny frog among this massive, detailed facade, it will bring you good luck.  We finally found it.... on top of this skull.

Just off the square is a courtyard with various rooms/exhbits, one of which is Fernando Gallego's Sky of Salamanca ceiling mural from the 15th century. 

A view of the courtyard.

Then we made our way to the Salamanca Cathedral.  This has a hidden image as well.... can you find it?  One of the restorer's had a sense of humor and decided to add an astronaut during the 1993 restoration. He blends in if you just look at it as a whole from a far, but if you get close and study it.....

you can find it! 

Then we made our way inside.

And headed up the Tower of the Old Cathedral!

Views of the city from atop the Old Cathedral rooftop.

Dave and Sheralyn in the Bell Tower.

Then we stopped for lunch and convinced Seth to order the paella.  Dave tried to warn us that paella was not originally made in this region but since Seth had never been to Spain before, we wanted him to try it. Well.... it came out soupy and not good with all kinds of random seafood who-knows-what mixed in.  So, word to the wise, if you head to Salamanca, you can skip the paella!

But we still got lots of laughs out of our 38 euro food fail!

Ending the day with a nice long walk along the Roman Bridge and Tormes River.

And a visit to the church right across the street from our hotel to see that the "float" we had seen in all her glory the night before had made it safely "home." 

And then we wrapped up the day by sitting outside, since it was perfect weather, at Origins enjoying their tasting menu.  This became a running joke of the trip as well because there was like a 15-30 minute long wait between each course, so this dinner ended up lasting nearly 3 hours!!  We were all dying by the end and asked for the check.  We paid it and got up to leave and they came running out saying (in Spanish) "No, sit back down, there's more!"  🤣

We were so stuffed after eating for nearly three hours, that we all decided to go on a walk and enjoy one last Salamanca evening and seeing Plaza Mayor by night.  And also.... check out that moon!

And that concludes our second day of the trip and our time in Salamanca!