Cornerstone

Day 37


When I woke up I realized that the electricity had gone out at some point during the night. I used this as an excuse in getting my act together very slowly. I needed to do this anyway, there wasn´t much light, even with the window open and I didn´t want to forget anything.

I had two things left to accomplish before leaving for Madrid. I returned to the Old and New Cathedrals to climb the tower the connected both of them, but was mainly part of the Old Cathedral. It was pretty cool to be able to climb up through the rafters of the cathedrals. Most of the time when you climb a church it is just straight up, step after step. This one had different levels and lead me through chambers of the cathedral at various heights. I got the chance to view Salamanca from every angle, each was more stunning than the next.

The other cool thing is that you got to walk across the top of the New Cathedral. This gave me an up close and personal view of the paintings on the ceilings. They were much better than they had looked the day before.



One of the rooms that I spent some time in was called the cornerstone room. It was basically the room that supported the weight of the Old Cathedral. Over the years the caretakers of the cathedral have lived here. It was easy to see damage from both the Lisbon earthquake in the 1700´s, as well as some fire damage. For some reason this room seemed more special to me than all of the ornately decorated chapels. I spent some time just staring at the walls and taking it all in.



I also spent some time checking out the Roman bridge. It wasn´t as impressive as everyone had said it was, but it was still interesting.



Someone had told me that the ride to Madrid was only about 2 hours, even if you took the cheap, slow bus as I was doing. This was why I didn´t watch the time very closely for when I would leave. The bus took more like 4.5 hours and I got to Madrid just as it was getting dark.
After some time on the Internet I ended up hanging out with some Brazilians and an American at the hostel bar before heading off to sleep. I had a early day that I wanted to be sure to be up for.