a wandering woman writes

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

A door


A door in Montemayor del Río, province of Salamanca

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posted by Erin at 7:02 PM

8 Comments:

  • A very nice shot.

    How much of Salamanca is old and historic versus newer? Knowing what you know of Spain, would you put Salamanca on a "must see" list of cities?

    By Blogger Yarbz, at 7:21 PM  

  • Oh, yarbz, c´mon! Depends on what puts a city on your must-see list. Salamanca is on mine, yeh. Salamanca has a large and largely intact historic centre. It's on the must-see list for Spanish kids while they are in school. :) For me, it's a must see for its beauty, its history, its evenings of pinchos, its view of a life in lovely, small yet important quintessentially Castillian city. Salamanca is authentically Salamanca, and yes, OLD. Very, very old. Lots of old. ;) There's new 70s blight, too, outside the centre but you can easily visit without even seeing it.

    Downside? If your time is limited and you want to see more than one of the major cities during the same trip (Seville, Madrid, Barcelona), we're a pain to get to. Two and a half hours out of Madrid by car, bus or train. So most foreign visitors visit Segovia and Toledo (also stunning) on daytrips from Madrid.

    Wander over to the other wandering woman's site www.womanwandering.blogspot.com and search for Salamanca photos, and you'll see she went crazy here, like I do... Then I again, I go crazy over little towns like the one that owns this door, population 378.

    LOL. Did I answer?

    By Blogger Erin, at 9:57 PM  

  • hi wandering woman

    love your blog. the humor, photos, quotes, insights...

    last summer, i went to antigua, guatemala for spanish classes. i took my laptop and camera thinking that i would blog all these wonderful stories. instead, the laptop died, i met friends, went to amazing dinners in wonderful restaurants, attended a mayan cult ceremony complete with cunandero, visited a mayan jungle and took up salsa classes and followed a cuban jazz group around Antigua.

    for this coming summer, i am researching for spanish classes (and a new laptop)in salamanca, spain. i didn't find any review sites that didn't seem to be sponsored by the school itself when i came across your blog.

    so....... i was just wondering if you wouldn't mind sending some suggestions/ideas/recommendations regarding spanish language immersion programs in the city that you love. after all, thanks to your blog, i've gone from thinking i have two whole months to spend in spain to i ONLY have two months to spend in spain.:)

    and also, it seems like a lot of the schools' websites are advertising to the college kids and i'm in my forties. and while i'm still young in spirit, i just want to have a good time rather than a great time like the college kids. :)

    by the way, what do you know about the university of salamanca's summer program?

    anyways, just wondering...thanks in advance for any thoughts/suggestions/ideas you may have to share.

    sincerely,

    sonja "the wondering woman"
    orlando, florida

    By Blogger Sani, at 1:55 AM  

  • WW, thanks for the info. My wife and I will have a meager 10 complete days in spain. We will fly to Madrid and will have a car. We're back road types and I am hoping to just cruise the back roads on the way to any of the larger cities we visit, We plan of
    Seville and some coastal cities.

    We may be able to enlarge our loop and include Salamanca...

    Note to Sonja RE being in your forties... A "great" time is even greater in your forties... You have so much more life experience with which to take in and process your experience. I just turned 47 on March 19th so I am speaking from experience! Don't settle for just a "good time"... :-)

    Yarbz

    By Blogger Yarbz, at 12:17 PM  

  • LOL;Yarbz I just hit 44 and I am 100% with you on the great time. :)

    Spain is the perfect place to wander in a car on secondary roads, so I enthusiastically endorse the plan, not that you asked. :)
    I like to wander Andalucia by car - the sierras of Cadiz, for example and Sevilla and Córdoba--the area around Grazalema being my favorite. I also love Extremadura by car (and Castilla Leon); Extremadura has amazingly conserved pueblos and medieval cities...

    Thanks as always for the visits and comments, Yarbz!

    By Blogger Erin, at 8:30 PM  

  • Hey Sonja,

    Did you leave me your e-mail? I don't see it here or on your blogger profile. Email me at wanderingwoman42@hotmail dot com ok?

    I love the tale of living the adventures more than writing them by the way....that's my excuse for not getting here more often. Got to keep an eye on what's running you - the adventures or the telling of them....

    Thank you for your comment; drop me a note, ok?

    By Blogger Erin, at 8:37 PM  

  • WW, your endorsement of my plan is good because I needed a little assurance that we will get the most out of our time.

    On a different note, I purchased level one of Rosetta Stone Spanish (Spain, not Latin American). Are you familiar with Rosetta Stone? Do you have any suggestions/ideas on what other methods would expedite my learning of Spanish so that I can have a reasonable understanding of Spanish within the next 6 months??? I was thinking of renting some Spanish language films and just watching them to soak in some Spanish...

    By Blogger Yarbz, at 2:31 PM  

  • Hey yarbz,
    10 days isn't a lot, so I'd control the size of your circle (so you can stop when you want!), but yes, I wholeheartedy endorse a drive through Spain.

    I don't have personal experience with Rosetta Stone but I used to work in the Spanish language-teaching industry and I have heard Rosetta Stone is by far the best self study. Other ideas, movies, yes, and Spanish radio and TV by internet (rtve in Spain, BBC's Spanish channel, etc..). also podcasts like notesfromspain.com and notesinspanish.com and CD-based audio magazines you can listen to while running or whatever- punta y comma http://www.pyc-revista.com/ is great if you are intermediate and above, and Puerto del Sol is another (champs-elysees.com I think). 6 months is a lot if time. If you stick to it you'll be fine. Start talking to every Spanish speaker you can find in the States; that helps too..

    By Blogger Erin, at 10:13 PM  

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