A Four Day Adventure

***NOTE: IN ALL THE POSTS THE PICTURE ORDER BEGINS FROM THE BOTTOM UP***

As I have stated before some posts will consist of a few days put together - this is one of them. This past weekend we decided to leave the country and head east to Spain. Our destination was Salamanca, an old Spainsh city which is a UNSECO World Heritage Site. We drove the 220 kilometers in our borrowed car and set our sights on the Torro (the Spanish say that Spain looks like a bull skin drying in the sun). Couchsurfing provided us with people to stay with and our hosts set us on our way through the city with some wonderful suggestions for sites. Walking through the Plaza de Mayor, which is pronounced with a stha instead of a za (like a lisp, the Spanish don't have a hard s or z sound), we were brought back hundreds of years to the 16th century. The narrow walkways made of cobblestone and hand laid brick made you lose sense of your time. No longer are you in the 21th century. All of a sudden a snap of a camera and a flash going off you are jettisoned back to reality. Salamanca is called the city of gold because the sandstone that was used to create centuries old cathedrals, (the old one and the new one, new one is five hundred years old) universities, churches, and other buildings have a golden hue which almost makes it look like marble. It was breath taking.
After our time in Salamanca we headed home to Covilhã, with a small detour in another medieval town, Ciudad Rodrigo. This is a fortified town dating back to the 12th century - it had a moat! Melissa and I walked the twisting streets and took in the site at sun down, what a great little detour.
Continuing our streak of wanderlust, on Monday we hopped in the car and took off vertically, we climbed the mountain. Halfway up our drive we came upon a carved religious shrine built right into the mountain rock. There was a waterfall and stream at its feet and about a dozen rock stairs leading up to it. I am in no way a religious nut, but it was very ethereal with the cloud cover passing right through us and playing with the light and the shrine. We twisted, turned, and hairpin curved our way up to the top of Torre to a final height of 1993 meters (6500 feet). To say the least it was cold and completely clouded up there we could not really see a thing until our descent and saw some amazing vistas and views of Covilhã.
Finally, today took us to a small little village Belmonte about twenty kilometers east of Covilhã. It was home to the marranos a secret sect of Jews who had been hiding their religion since the Inquisition. Even though there have been Jews living there for hundreds of years a synagogue was only built in 1996. It was a quaint little place with a castle and cobblestone roads. A prefect place to spend an afternoon wandering around.
I suppose my time here is not so bad, what a life I live.