All good things must come to an end, and what better place to end such an amazing trip than at the very beginning.  Salamanca is where I started my European journey 10 years ago, when I spent a semester studying Spanish in this small university town.  It holds a special place in my heart, and it was really great to get the chance to go back.  We hadn’t originally planned on going to Spain since we had traveled it so much before, but it ended up working out that the best flight home was out of Madrid, so we made the 2 hour drive to Salamanca from Madrid.  It felt good to be back in Spain, it felt as close to home as anywhere had in Europe, and it was a treat to finally speak the language.

It was surreal to be back; when I left Salamanca 10 years ago I never really imagined I would ever be back.  Driving into the town was odd, it didn’t look like I had remembered it, but I had never seen the city by car as I was pretty sheltered in the small area that I walked to from school, my house and the Plaza.  But once we arrived at the Plaza Mayor, everything came back to me and I was overwhelmed with nostalgia.

There is nothing like the Plaza Mayor, it’s breathtaking no matter how many times you see it.

We had less than 24 hours to spend in Salamanca, so we just walked around and enjoyed the plaza and the surrounding restaurants and cafes.  I was really excited to have churros and coffee in the little cafe that my friends and I always met and hung out at.  It’s been open since like 1906, and it was exactly as I had remembered.

That night we had dinner in the plaza and watched the sun set and the plaza light up.  It’s such a great place to people watch; there are tons of students, local and foreign, and the plaza is where they meet up at to go out (many a drunken night started here with my friends 10 years ago), plenty of tourists experiencing the plaza, and all the locals meet there on Sunday nights to circle the plaza and have dinner. It is an amazing mix of generations, we especially loved watching all the elderly couples shuffle along knowing this was such a tradition to them.

We set up the gopro on our balcony to see the plaza go from daytime to night; when the lights come on the whole crowd gasps, it’s so amazing. Check it out:

It was sad to know we only had one night left in Europe; it felt like we had been gone so long and yet our fantasy was finally coming to an end.  But, we desperately missed our puppies, and couldn’t wait to get back to them.  The next morning we said goodbye to Salamanca, but first I captured the most epic “Matt Sits in European Windows” photo yet:

We’ll be back Salamanca!  I promise!