Today was another day of meandering…. she was a little overcast in the morning and even threatened rain, but she held off and it was a glorious temp for Salamanca meandering….

Our first stop was to the Nouveau Art Museum and on the way we stopped back off at the lovely garden we stumbled across in the dark last night…

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The museum is an amazing building with a full wall of stained glass windows. Naturally it used to be a palace and it’s full of Art Deco delights.

Porcelain, bronze, glass, dolls, teddy bears and toys, furniture and somebody had a weird obsession with clowns! It’s a shame though that they wouldn’t let me take any photos except in the cafe area…

Then we wandered a different way up and around the cathedral following some lovely music which bought us to this amazing building…

This poor chap that you can see at the bottom here with his guitar was playing some beautiful music, so lovely and serene that it drew you in and I thought we could find somewhere to sit and listen to him…. But when we turned the corner and found where the sound was coming from we found that he was competing with a tour guide whose mic was broken (so she shouted to her group), the church bells were chiming loudly and this man stood and chatted to him mid song, so he did what he had to and stopped while it all happened around him.

The carvings on the front of this cathedral were so intricate… It was amazing, but I’d like to draw your attention to one scene in particular…

Above the left hand door – Nativity. I want to know the intention of that bull. Also one of the 3 wise men is kneeling on what appears to be a Canadian Mountie hat. I have questions???

When we were in the museum we spoke to a German couple who spoke Spanish and English and helped us out when buying out tickets, so then naturally we bumped into them for the rest of the morning, not only in the rooms of the museum, but out and about on the street as well. In fact they gave us a little snippet of information that was quite interesting. On the column on the side door of this cathedral there is a hidden gem….

On the left hand column, four motifs up, you’ll find an astronaut! That’s right.

This Cathedral was built between 1513 and 1733, and had some restoration work done in 1992. Apparently it’s a tradition of cathedral builders and restorers to add details or new carvings to the facade as a sort of signature. Hopefully records and the internet are still in tact in 500 years, otherwise there could be some questions about the history of space travel!

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We continued our wandering through the old town and out the other side, there are beautiful buildings and wood carved doors all over this city…

Me Jenny has been banging on about white asparagus since the last time she had it – 10 years ago? I don’t know, but it seems a long time that I’ve been hearing about bloody white asparagus and today – we found some. Let me just say – delicious! Huge and delicious. Washed down with a lovely glass of sangria. Me Jenny’s pretty happy.

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A full day of meandering can make a lady a tad weary, so a siesta was had so that we would be able to stay up with the Spanish grown ups & their kids!!! People here don’t go out until 8.30-9pm to have their dinner. We have often been the first people at a restaurant at 8pm and even then they’re sometimes only just opening their doors after their own siesta. There were still kids out and about at 10.30pm when we had to call it a night. So we did one last look at the big square at night with the pretty lights and then hightailed it home, pushing kids out the way left, right and centre!