20261029 Thursday, October 29, 2026; A Day in Salamanca, Spain

The ship remained tied up at the dock in Barca d’Alva overnight with the Uniworld  São Gabriel River cruise boat tied up alongside our port side. Our starboard side balcony remained unobstructed, but you could just about step off our balcony directly onto the concrete pier, so we kept our curtains drawn for privacy. 

Guests of the Uniworld ship did have to walk through our lobby to access their ship, but it seems like the two crews arranged it so that this occurred while we were either all in the lounge for the daily briefing or in the restaurant for dinner, as we never saw strangers tramping through our lobby. It is notable that the various river cruise operators have worked out this sort of interoperability between different ships of different ownership. 

After breakfast, we boarded our buses, which wound their way up the steep ledges at the western border of a tectonic plateau which levels off at 2800’ above sea level. As we climbed up onto the plateau, the geography changed to a broad flat plain as far as the eye could see, divided up by low rock walls and barbed wire fencing. 

The plains are covered with grass and sparse oak forests called dehesa in Spanish or montado in Portuguese. There are four different oaks that produce acorns staggered over the course of the year. These acorns are key to the diet of the famous Iberian black pigs. These pigs roam free range, but are hard to spot because each pig requires a whole hectare of dehesa to survive. Despite the exercise these pigs get roaming about to feed on the widely dispersed acorns, the breed is particularly prone to obesity and accumulation of both subcutaneous and intramuscular fat. This produces pigs that look lean with fine bones, but have exceptional flavor. 
The markets in both Spain and Portugal are filled with stalls selling Iberian pork products, prominently displaying smoked ham legs hanging from the ceiling, or cradled on a special mount for slicing paper-thin slices for sale. 

We wondered if these plains in Spain are where the rains mainly fall, according to the song from My Fair Lady. 

We made a comfort stop at a restaurant called the Casa Conrado, which had a nice meat shop in front. We were treated to juice, coffee, and tea served with wafer-thin bakery products that looked like Frisbee-sized communion wafers.  They did have the texture and slightly sweet flavor of wafer cookies without the waffling or cream. 

Sofia and Hugo with Ben, Janet, Lydia and Becky

We had a perfect day weather-wise to explore Salamanca, with blue skies, scant breeze, and temperatures in the mid to upper 60s.

 
We started our tour at the covered Mercado next to the Plaza Mayor. This building contained flourishes of nouveau art decor and was filled with stalls selling Iberian pork, seafood, fresh produce, and tourist staples. The meat vendors had impressively complete “build-a-pig” cases displaying everything from the snout, ears, cheeks, and trotters to the testicles and tails.  Even being so far from the ocean, the crabs and lobsters in one of the fish stalls were still clearly alive and moving.  There was a remarkable selection of different fish available. 

 

Here, we were treated to a glass of wine and charcuterie featuring Iberian pork products, olives, fruits, and cheese. And Viking gave us privileged access to the market’s bathrooms.  

Our walking tour took us from Plaza Mayor to the University campus and Cathedral. The Plaza is a huge public square, easily large enough to conduct bullfights in the center.  It displays Baroque architecture and is built of honey-toned Villamayor limestone. 

A lot of the buildings within Salamanca’s ancient city walls are constructed of a honey-toned Villamayor limestone. It is this limestone color that gave Salamanca the eponym of La Dorada (The Golden City), not the precious metal. 

Throughout both Spain and Portugal, storks are revered, and large stork nests are seen atop high-voltage transmission towers, bell towers, and other elevated structures.  These nests appear to be empty at this time because most storks are migratory, but some remain residents year-round in some places. 

The university at Salamanca is one of the oldest universities in the world. It was founded in 1218 by King Alfonso IX.  Its ornate facade looks more like a cathedral entrance than an institution for higher learning.  Among the elaborate decorations around the entrance is hidden a frog, which, if spotted, will bring visitors good luck.  Can you spot the frog?  

We wandered through some of the courtyards among the classrooms and offices and down the main street lined by restaurants and shops. 

 

We eventually emerged in front of the Casa de las Conchas, a building which now houses the public library.  It was built at the turn of the 15th century by a knight of the Order of Santiago de Compostela and a professor at the University of Salamanca. 

 

It is an example of Gothic and Plateresque (a transitional Spanish style featuring silversmith-like low-relief intricate stonework) architecture with over 300 shells adorning the facade.  Why shells?  Well, these are the symbol of the Order of Santiago, as well as of pilgrims on the Way of St. James (Santiago) pilgrimage.  There are bronze shell symbols embedded in the street cobblestones directing pilgrims along their way to the Cathedral.  

Our official walking tour ended in the Plaza de Anaya between the University and the Old/New Cathedrals, where a Giant Sequoia stands.

  

New Cathedral tower on left.

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Hoover Tower, Stanford University

This was planted in 1976 and looks just like the tree on the Stanford University logo.  In an ironic twist, the Hoover Tower on the Stanford Campus in Palo Alto, California, was directly inspired by the cathedral tower at the University of Salamanca.  There have been numerous collaborations between the two institutions over the years. 

 
We had a couple of hours of free time to explore Salamanca on our own with Viking providing free admission to tour the Cathedrals and Art Nouveau Museum via our trademark red Viking Voxbox lanyards.  Naturally, we took advantage of these opportunities.  

In addition to the search for the Salamanca Frog on the University’s facade, there is an astronaut hidden among the decorations of the old Cathedral. 

 

This is not an evidence of visitors from outer space giving ancient Earth civilizations cheat codes, but was added during a 1992 restoration, along with a dragon eating an ice cream cone. Our guide was kind enough to point it out, nearly covered by scaffolding and tarps from ongoing refurbishment work on the building.  

At the risk of suffering ABC symptoms (Another Bloody Church) that afflict tourists to Europe, we entered the Gothic Cathedral, and found it very similar to other grand Gothic Cathedrals in Portugal and Spain.  All are awe-inspiring in their scale and decor.  That really is the main point of religious architecture and iconography.  There seem to be plenty of famous or important people interred under the floors of the cathedral and in crypts inside chapels.  

Unusual painting depicting Jesus, Saints, fascists and prostitutes all in one.

The Old Cathedral and New Cathedrals are physically connected, and both appear to be in use.  The Old Cathedral was built between the 12th and 1st centuries in the Romanesque style with a Byzantine clock tower.  

The “New” Cathedral was built between 1513 and 1733 in Late Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque styles to accommodate the rapidly increasing population of the University during the period.

The Nouveau Arts Museum was just across a very narrow street from the New Cathedral.  It’s a shame that no photography is allowed inside this museum, but it contains a lot of interesting and beautiful items, including sculptures, glass works, paintings, furniture, and an entire floor of dolls, including a vast array of porcelain dolls and some automatons, including a very creepy monkey that plays a violin.  

Gift shop reproductions

Gift shop miniatures

The most impressive items are a collection of sculptures of dancers made of ivory and bronze that capture the fluidity of motion and expressions of ecstasy.  

There is a small garden between the ancient city walls and the back of the Cathedrals that is a quiet oasis with a view from the top of the city walls. Foliage in trees did obstruct a potential view of the Roman Bridge that crosses the river and leads into the city.  

We walked along the river and across the Roman bridge.  The river is narrow and contains very long, bright green aquatic plants or algae which wave like a Martian mermaid’s hair in the current.  

Our tour concluded with afternoon tea at el Monje at the outskirts of the city wall.  There were sandwiches, pastries, grapes, pineapple chunks, and melon chunks in addition to coffee and tea.  

While we were in Salamanca, the ship had repositioned in Barca d’Alva to the downstream side of the bridge and the third ship from the pier.  This meant that we had to walk through the lobbies of the Spirit of Douro and One World Travel cruise ships to get to the Viking Hemming.  

The Spirit of Douro appeared similar to the Hemming, albeit a bit older in appearance, while the São Gabriel Uniworld cruise ship did appear a bit more upscale with a glass elevator in the lobby and more elaborate European decor.  That ship has a 100-passenger capacity with 39 crew with a veranda priced at $8400 brochure price vs Viking Hemming’s 106 guests with 32 crew priced at $6000 for a standard veranda.  We have run into passengers from the Uniworld ship in several of our excursions, and they seem to have a similar demographic and tour group sizes. 

 
We were welcomed aboard with ice cream bars—mini Magnum ice cream bars.  This was a nice welcome.  The Spirit of Douro had what looked like small pours of an amber liquor waiting for their returning guests.  The Uniworld just had a dour-looking agent behind a desk making sure we kept moving along through their lobby.  

The Portuguese menu tonight featured a grilled octopus salad followed by pork loin served on a sweet potato mash and port reduction with cabbage.  Dessert was a pastry with filo dough filled with a warm sweet egg custard like Pastéis de Nata, but in an elongated and more delicate form.  

During dinner, the ship sailed from Barca d’Alva back down to Pocinho where it tied up for the night.  The ship tied up with our balcony unobstructed on the dock side and the deck below us level with the top of the pier.  

The evening entertainment was a short historical film showing passage down the Douro River in the 1950s before the construction of the dams and locks.  There were significant rapids in the gorge that were dangerous to navigate. This was narrated by Captain Tiago and followed by a Q&A session with Captain Tiago and Ariana, the Hotel General Manager.  After a long day, we decided to retire early for a change.  We tuned in on the live audio feed on the Live Lounge TV channel in our stateroom, which did broadcast the black-and-white movie footage, but only audio for the Q&A session.  This allowed us to get our showers in early.  

Tomorrow, we will be getting off the ship at 8:30 a.m. for an all-day excursion to Favalos Bakery and Lunch at Quinta Avessada while the ship navigates to Folgosa, where we will be rejoining the ship.  The ship will then continue through the last lock on its way to Lamego, where it will tie up tomorrow night.  It seems the ship is rushing to get back to Porto.  We received information on our Santiago de Compostela post-cruise extension today, so the end of this cruise is coming up quickly.