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Salamanca

Audioguide of Salamanca

What to see in Salamanca

Salamanca begins at its Plaza Mayor (Mayor Square), up to that point, everyone agrees. It was built in the eighteenth century, at the end of the Baroque era and when the city was going through a kind of renaissance after a downturn period which all the important places often have to go throughout its history.

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Salamanca begins at its Plaza Mayor (Mayor Square), up to that point, everyone agrees. It was built in the eighteenth century, at the end of the Baroque era and when the city was going through a kind of renaissance after a downturn period which all the important places often have to go throughout its history.

And Salamanca was a very important place. It had gained great prestige, thanks to all the wise men who had gone to its University, one of the oldest in Europe and which facade hides the famous figure of a frog.

We are going to skip the origin of the city: the usual process of Romanisation, its Visigoth period after, the Muslim conquest and its repopulation by Christians in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. But we are going to stop at that time because it is when they start to build the cathedral in which the so-called cathedral schools began. This centres of ancient knowledge were going to be recognised as a university in the thirteenth century and would follow a history of students eager to learn and distinguished professors transmitting science and wisdom in the classrooms.

With Francisco de Vitoria in charge, the so-called School of Salamanca was a shake-up in universal thought and reformulated a lot of things about the legitimacy of invading and conquering by force, in other words, what today we call human rights. Subjects of little significance at the time and which also were placed on the table in the sixteenth century, when Spain ruled the world.

Under the heat of its University, the city became illustrious and started accumulating wonders that today remain standing for you to visit them, no matter if you have or haven’t found the frog. Two Cathedrals, a vast number of churches and convents, many of them Baroque, palaces like the famous Casa de las Conchas and several legends at the height of so much architectural splendour. Check out the rest of our audioguides about these places!

A particularly curious place is what they call Cueva de Salamanca. They say that there, the Devil disguised himself as a sacristan to teach black magic and dark arts to seven disciples during seven years. When they were finished, one of them had to be at the service of Satan, and it is said that it was the Marquis of Villena who had such diabolic honour. But the thing is that the poor man ran away as soon as he could and even managed to dodge the Devil, although according to the legend, on the run he lost something forever: His shadow!


Salamanca

Plaza Mayor, 32 (Oficina de Turismo)
37002 Salamanca
(+34) 923 27 24 08

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