After over 5 weeks on tour, my hair was direly in need of a trim. We had been looking for barbers since Barcelona, which was the last time we saw one. In the meantime we had only seen hair salons, mainly for women. I wasn't that keen on going to one of these so we asked reception for help. They told us where to go a few streets away, but it turned out to be a hair salon, not a barbers.
Desperate by this time, I bit my tongue and went in and was on the chair within a few minutes, being attended by the nice young woman. We soon established that I wanted her to use the electrical clippers rather than scissors, but that process did not go to her satisfaction as she had sprayed my hair rather too liberally. No matter, she reverted to the scissors and the job was done after about 15-20 minutes (my Italian barber takes no more than five minutes). Joan liked the outcome but when we later got back to the hotel (after passing a barber shop 100 m from the hotel!) I saw that I had a distinctly asymmetrical cut.
The day turned out to be another one dominated by Catholic institutions - the Cathedral and a monastery. The cathedral was actually two cathedrals in one where a larger late Gothic building was glued onto the side of the earlier Romanesque one. The two styles provided a very interesting contrast. We liked both structures and particularly appreciated the vaulting in the new church. The altar piece in the new one was over the top as usual, but the earlier one was quite beautiful, consisting of 55 small paintings. For Joan, the subsequent visit to the tower and roofs of the cathedral was her most vertigo-inducing experience yet.
We had lunch at another LP-recommended restaurant on Plaza Mayor because it had a good menu del dia. Joan fancied dining on the terrace so made ourselves comfortable, only to be told that the menu del dia was only available inside. This is another example of how they try to trap the tourists - the menu del dia is on display to lure you in, but then they give you the a-la-carte menu, with much higher prices. We ate on the first floor and as it turned out, we had a fine view of the plaza and a very nice meal and wine too. We're finally getting the hang of this eating gig.
After lunch and a siesta we visited the Iglesia-Convento San Esteban (St Stephens Monastery). It belongs to the Dominican order and seemed to be as richly endowed as the cathedrals. We particularly liked this church - late Gothic again, but very graceful. There was also a fine museum of religious artifacts from the Philippines and South America. The Dominican order was sent to the new world after the Jesuits had been expelled (we learned this on our SA trip two years ago). We had noticed the first appearance of distinctive bell towers here in Salamanca that we had also seen in Peru, and which were also familiar from countless western movies. They consist of a wall with one or three openings for hanging bells. It now seems likely that this style was introduced by the Dominicans.
After yet another siesta (we will really miss this lifestyle), we had dinner at another LP-recommended café around the corner from the one we ate at yesterday evening. This was another success.
We finished off the evening with a walk down to the illuminated monastery.
A word about storks: I have had a long fascination with these beautiful birds and can't stop photographing them. We had seen them in other cities in Spain, notably Segovia, but Salamanca seems to be their home town as they can be seen nesting on every kind of tower or high structure imaginable. Some buildings even have specially constructed platforms to accommodate their large nests. Today I was lucky and got some decent shots of them in flight - I just held the shutter release down and hoped for the best.
This may be our last blog for a while, as we will soon be in Paris where we have much to do, friends/relatives to catch up with, and no siesta time.
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