The sunshine followed us all the way from La Rioja to Salamanca - the calm before the storm as it turns out, but more on that later. Salamanca is about 380kms south west of La Rioja through some pretty remote areas so we decided our pit stop point would be an incredibly hard to pronounce (at least for me) place called Valladolid. We hadn’t done any research, didn’t know anything about the place and after hundreds of miles of dusty one horse towns, I wasn’t expecting much. In fact, about a half hour outside of the city, I happened to notice guys by the side of the road carrying shotguns. Not police or anything, just a few fellas with big rifles. I think maybe they were hunting duck or something. Still, I’m thinking maybe the side of the freeway is not the best spot for that, but I'm no expert. I told Mr T to put his foot down.

So as I said, I didn’t have high hopes for Valladolid. Shows how much I know. It was phenomenal.

Somehow I managed to navigate Mr T directly to the main pedestrian square which didn’t look like you were supposed to drive across it, but we held our nerve and ended up in the car park. We spent a delightful couple of hours snooping about, listening to the church bells ring, marveling at all the wonders, and enjoying vermouth, beer and some toasted sandwiches in the warm sunshine. This place has been around since before the Romans so clearly I’m the last one to know about it, but it’s definitely worth a visit. You heard it here first! 

With that, we were on the road again to Salamanca, a place I’ve wanted to visit for the past 12-15 years. I’m not entirely sure why, who knows what I’m thinking most of the time to be honest. I do have a vague recollection of wanting to come and learn Spanish here once upon a time. Motivations aside, Salamanca was one place I didn’t want to miss on this trip. And let me tell you, she’s a beauty. 

The city dates back to 3rd Century and has been an intellectual hub since the 1100s. It has one of the oldest universities in Europe and still has a fun loving student crowd that keeps the place hopping. What a place to go to Uni, with so much history at every turn. Can’t imagine there are many places where you can go to school in a UNESCO world heritage site.

We had glorious sunshine for our visit which was a delight, but boy was it cold, averaging a wind chill of about -5 centigrade each night. Still we rugged up and enjoyed every moment. There’s so much to see, we walked about 10 miles the following day, along the river banks, through the old town, up to the university and everywhere else in between. Fun fact, huge white storks build massive nests on the top of all the old buildings so it totally looks like magical beasts perched above Hogwarts. If you're a Harry Potter fan, this place is a dream come true. 

In the afternoon, we tried to walk part of the Camino de Santiago, the famous pilgrim path that runs from the South of Spain to the North, and happens to pass right through Salamanca. Not because I’m into pilgrimages or anything like that, it’s just that we’d watched “The Way” a few months back (not everyone’s cup of tea but I absolutely loved it) so thought it might be good to walk a slice of it. It wasn’t quite as easy as all that. Once we’d managed to get ourselves wedged between two noisy freeways with trash strew all around, I put the brakes on and made the team turn around. Maybe we’ll try again in Seville. 

While we’re talking about movies, if you’ve seen the movie “Vantage Point,” the main square in Salamanca, Plaza Mayor, is going to look very familiar. I’m not the best in crowds at the best of times, but walking around the square I was definitely cursing the day I watched a movie about snipers in the windows!

The first night we fancied a little tapas, especially as Salamanca is known for it’s Bellota ham, or Pata Negra in Spanish because of their famous black hooves. The Bellota ham farmers must abide by very strict rules about how pigs are to be treated, the pigs spend their time out in the country side snuffling about and scoffing about 6-7kg of delicious acorns each day, no more than two pigs are allowed per hectare. The regulations on how the pigs are treated and when the time comes, how they are “sacrificed,” are very strictly enforced. Which goes some way to make this lapsed vegetarian feel a little better. 

Frolicking piggies aside, off we went to tapas and quite by accident, discovered a gem of a place called Taberna de Dionisos We timed it beautifully, we got there at around 7.15pm and had our pick of the tables. By 8pm, the place was packed to the rafters, every single table looked like locals. The service was incredibly friendly, not much English was spoken but we muddled through with a laugh, the wine list was excellent, and the food..oh the food! I’m still dreaming about the prawns. And the anchovies. And that ham.

The last night we did not strike gold with the restaurant so I won’t waste time telling you about that. But we did find an epic cocktail bar with a lovely bartender who had us try Spanish gin (for Mr T) and vermouth (for me) and looked after us so well, we were a little tipsy on our way to dinner. It took us a while to find the bar in the first place, Mr T had heard of this place called ‘Mist’ so up and down, and up and down we went trying to find the name ‘Mist.’ Finally we gave up and went into the first cocktail bar we could find, ‘Niebla,’ only to discover later that Niebla is, of course, Mist in Spanish. Nailed it!

And with that, our time in Salamanca has come to an end, next up we’re on our way to Douro Valley in Portugal. The weather promises to be absolutely dreadful, a massive wet front is passing through combined with the Beast from the East snow storm. So batten down the hatches folks, that’s the end of the sunshine for a while.