Salamanca, amor mío
Way back in 2006, I took the leap that many college students do and studied abroad for the summer. Having grown up in a rural area, without a ton of resources, this was my first time outside the US, and the impressions the experience left on me are indelible.
Salamanca is a gorgeous city, home to a gamut of architectural styles, including Gothic and Plateresque (see the Casa de las Conchas—just around the corner from where I studied), Mudéjar (see the Convento de las Dueñas), and Romanesque (see Iglesia de San Martín). It’s one of the few Spanish cities to have two cathedrals—both the Old Cathedral, mainly a Romanesque and Gothic structure, and the New Cathedral, with a mix of late Gothic, Plateresque, and Baroque styles.
After I slept off a heavy dose of first-day jet lag, my new flatmate took me out to walk in the Plaza Mayor—a nightly ritual where residents promenade around the massive square to chat, drink, see, and be seen. At night, the baroque plaza is lit up and golden, proving why Salamanca is also called La Dorada—The Golden City. Walking up Calle Toro from our flat felt like being inside a pop-up picture book, and when we walked under the arches to the entrance to the plaza, the whole thing bloomed out like some kind of magic. It was hard to believe that this was where I lived for the next few weeks. It was more beautiful than anything I had ever seen in my life.
One of the classes I took while there focused on architecture, and the teacher was an energetic and restless Spanish woman who lead us around the city while pointing out various architectural features and impatiently asking us, “Os dais cuenta? Os dais cuenta?” (Do you understand?). (Most of our group had learned Spanish from teachers who were from or who studied in countries in the Americas, where the vosotros form she used wasn’t used or taught. So no . . . many did not understand!) I loved her frantic energy and her intense love of architecture. She was in a master’s program at the university and clearly was clearly on her way to bigger things.
Every day, I got to walk up Calle Toro, through the Plaza Mayor, and past buildings like the Casa de las Conchas on my way to class. We took field trips to Segovia. I travelled with my flatmate to Barcelona. Every place we went was new and gorgeous, but the blush of magic Salamanca held for me never faded.
For several years, I’ve been sketching “hard” images—a tumble of flowers and leaves, amassed together, with dappled sunlight. Greek cities cascading off the side of a caldera. And my mind keeps going back to the architecture of Salamanca, its richness and the tapestry of styles, and I retrace the intricacies I came to know that summer. I don’t know if I’ll commit to a larger project focused on Salamanca, but for now, I love to puzzle together the spires of its cathedrals and the complex spirals of its gothic stonework.
It's Henley 