Today is Liberty Day in Portugal in celebration of the
Carnation Revolution in 1974, when carnations were placed in the gun barrels of
the soldiers as the dictator Salazar was deposed.
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| Plaza Mayor |
Once again, we couldn’t get through a lock so the 2-hour drive to Salamanca, Spain is 3 hours. Salamanca is known as the golden city because the city center is built from sandstone. The city has 150K population and 30K students at the oldest university in Spain. We started our walking tour at the city hall in the Plaza Mayor. Around the square there are 88 arches with medallions of the kings and famous people of the area of Castille Leone. As we walked, we saw several bell towers with nesting storks.
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| Storks on the Bell Tower |
We walked past the Casa de las Conchas with seashells on the walls. The walls of many buildings had red graffiti to celebrate the victory of earning a PhD. The city has two cathedrals from the 12th and 16th centuries. We started on the façade of the 16th century New Cathedral. The entire central vault fell during the 1555 earthquake.
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| The New Cathedral |
In the Old Cathedral is the life story of Mary told right to left and bottom to top. As we left the Cathedrals we looked up to see a carving of an astronaut and a dragon eating ice cream. These carvings were done during the cathedral’s recent restoration. Our return trip was only 2 hours since our ship had made it through the final lock.
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| Astronaut in the restoration |
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