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We wish you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS & happy New Year!

Tuesday, January 4th, 2011

Los reyes Magos

On 24th December we are having a great dinner with the whole family, doing some games at home and enjoing a great party night which lasts most untill sunrise… Most typical plate for x-mas includs sea food, king prawns, lobsters and almonds. And not to forget the sweets like Turrón, Polvorón, Mazapan and Roscón de Reyes. It’s similar to stirred cake with candied fruit and 2 presents inside like ceramic figure and a bean. The one who find it (bean) has to pay the cake for all guests. ;)

Epiphany (Los Reyes Magos, 6th January) is also a very special day in Spain, because it’s presents day! Los Reyes Magos are bringing x-mas presents during the night before to the children which works like Santa Claus. A few weeks prior the kids are ‘sending’ them a list of wishes and can’t wait for that night/day.

Another important custom is Christmas Lottery which take place some weeks before and is the ‘most important’ in Spain. Lottery drawing is on 22th December. It costs round 20 €.

The same goes with New Year’s Eve…. As a lot of our actual students know there exists the only original ‘Nochevieja Universitaria’ in Salamanca which always take place the last thursday before x-mas. It is nearly working like real New Year’s Eve on 30th December, but because of less students in town and the need of a farewell party from students they invented it.

Spanish dinner

Since a few years there is a big party at Plaza Mayor with thousands of students, bands from Salamanca, typical chimes at 12 and not to forget the most important: eating 12 jelly babies during bell-ringing, standing for good luck for the following year (12 grapes at 30th December)!
After it the party is going on in most bars from Salamanca till the early morning…. Furthermore it works like a big reunion for all ‘old’ Erasmus students and it is a great reason for coming back again!

And last but not least we are relaxing some more days… So enjoy your days at home, let’s have a great HAPPY NEW YEAR and dont forget to sleep a bit for beeing ready when school starts again on 3rd January 2011!

¡Nos vemos pronto!

Salamanca and its history (part 1 / 2)

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

The city of Helmantika, which would later become Salamanca, was founded in the 4th Century AD by the Celts as a fortress town. The Romans soon took the town during their northern advances. With its ideal location, Helmantika became an important communications link for the Gold Route, a natural passage that, from the antiquity onwards, ran along the east of the Iberian Peninsula. The name Helmantica was changed to Salamantica, which in turn became the Salamanca of today.

Roman bridge in Salamanca, click to enlarge it

In the 8th Century, during the Muslim invasion, Musa Ubh Nusair conquered the city. Throughout the Early Middle Ages, Salamanca was a no-mans land: the area remained practically uninhabited until the battle of Simancas (939), when a few small settlements appeared along the river Tormes; however, only after the reconquest of Toledo by Alfonso VI, in 1085, was the city repopulated; French, Mozarabs, Spaniards, Portuguese, Jews… The first bishop of the diocese of Salamanca was bishop Jerónimo of Perigord, the famous bishop Jerónimo of the Poema de Mío Cid (the Lay of the Cid), who always wore a crucifix into battle.

It was at this point that construction started on Salamanca’s cathedral, whose final stone possibly has still not been laid. The cathedrals are like mythical creatures, which have undergone various mutations throughout the years… Schools began to spread around the original temple, from which grew the university. After the Christian Reconquest, in the 8th Century, King Alfonso IX founded the university of Salamanca, which was ratified by Pope Alexander in 1255.

Salamanca Cathedral

Salamanca's Cathedral detail, click to enlarge image

In the 15th Century, the city was divided in two: the parish of Saint Benito and the parish of Saint Tome. The tensions between the two became known as the Guera de los Bandos: in one of the numerous confrontations the sons of dame Maria Rodriguez de Monroy “the Brave” died at the hands of a rival family. Maria followed her sons’ murderers as far as Portugal, where she beheaded them and laid their heads on the tombs of her dead sons at the church of Saint Tome in Salamanca.

Thanks to a definitive effort by the Mesta (a powerful association of sheep holders in the medieval Kingdom of Castile), Salamanca became the centre of woollen production and began to export wool. At the end of this century one of the most important cultural events in Spanish history took place in Salamanca: in 1492 Elio Antonio de Nebrija created the first Spanish grammar – the first study of the rules of a western-European language that was not Latin. Also in the 15th Century in Salamanca, the Latin American Beatriz Galindo became the first woman in the world to attend university. She would go on to become Queen Isabel the Catholic’s teacher.

Christopher Columbus proposed his first voyage to America in Salamanca in the 15th Century, where he obtained the support of the Dominican Fathers, who let him stay up in the beautiful convent of San Esteban. The staff of the University of Salamanca met in council to discuss his project, and the astronomer Abraham Zacuto (from Salamanca) became the Genoese navigator’s great scientific supporter.

Cheap flights to Spain from Europe and America!!

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

Flying to Spain doesn’t have to be as expensive as you’d think. If you take the time to look around at the different options on offer you can find some good deals and cheap flights to Spain!

Visit Salamanca, Castille and Leon

Visit Salamanca, Castille and Leon

The length of the stay doesn’t really affect the price of the flights available, after having looked at some of the best offers around we’ve found that the flights are cheapest when you take them during the week and not at the weekend, and that the return flight doesn’t need to be within a week or two of the outbound flight. The flights can normally be looked at on a weekly or monthly plan on the companies websites, and you can get an over view of the different flights they do and the prices, and select your trip to Spain that way!

Flying within Europe is easy and you can find loads of flights that are low cost. Today we’ve found loads of up to date offers for trips to Spain, and here we’ve got some of the best options we found for you to have a look at!

Flying from London there’s more options because of the different airports that you can fly from. Depending on where in Spain you want to go to there are quite a few options, and most flights should cost you under £50 for a return trip!

Ryanair has loads of offers for flights from different places across England and Ireland for low cost flights to Spain. The best flight we found was from London Stanstead to Valladolid for £31.46 return! This flight in particular was leaving London on the 9th of September and returning on the 25th, nearly 2 weeks in Spain for about £30! If you were thinking of mixing your trip with tourism and maybe a Spanish course this flight would be perfect. You could spend a few days in Castille and Leon and still have time to take a week long Spanish course in Salamanca before coming home! Ryanair had loads of similar flights and you can see them all on a weekly timetable on their website and find the best flights for you.

Visit historic monuments in Spain

Visit historic monuments in Spain

Another option flying from London to Spain is to go to Madrid, for which there are loads of flights. The cheapest flight from London to Madrid that we found was from London Gatwick to Madrid for £30.00! This flight was flying on the 9th of September with Ryanair and returning on the 16th, a week long trip to Spain. The best bit about Ryanair and this flight is that, again, there were loads of options and the dates were flexible with loads of flights for nothing, only paying taxes! The average for the flights from London to Madrid with Ryanair were about £40.00, but if you keep looking and are flexible with flights then there’s loads of chances to pick a cheap flight out! The best part of flying to Madrid is the options it gives you once you’re in Spain, you could go to any of the major cities, and there are great transport links to Salamanca, Seville and Granada, to name a few places. There’s more information on how to get to Seville, how to get to Salamanca and how to get to Granada available here.

Flying into Seville is a bit more expensive on average, but still isn’t too bad and the flights are relatively cheap. We found a cheap flight from Stanstead in London flying into Seville, again from the 9th to the 16th of September for £69.56. The most important thing that we’ve found whilst looking for cheap deals to Spain is that you don’t even have to book a long time in advance, the week of the 9th of September is soon but there are still plenty of cheap flights available!

If you fancied visiting  Granada and wanted to fly to Malaga then there are flights available for 48,06€, making that only about £42.00! The flight we found for this price was with Aer Lingus flying from London Gatwick to Malaga in September. They also had flights where you only have to pay the taxes, the flight itself was free! Have a look at their website for this, if you’re flexible with dates then you’ll easily find something cheap.

Fly cheap to Madrid, Spain

Fly cheap to Madrid, Spain

Flying from America you can also find reasonable flights to Spain! We managed to find a variety of flights for about 400-500$, so for about 280-350€! This is the price including fees and taxes. Flights on expedia.com and with Iberia were about this price for flights going from New York to Madrid in September and October. Flying mid week and being flexible with dates makes these cheaper. On Rumbo.es there are flights too for reasonable prices, including a trip for 413.81€ return from New York to Madrid on the 2nd of October, returning on the 11th.

A few things to look out for when booking online flights is that they don’t catch you out with extra prices. The prices we’ve given you here are the final prices after taxes for the flights! The adverts sometimes show you a cheap flight, but after insurance, taxes etc they quickly shoot up. Baggage can be a problem too, if you’re able to travel with just hand luggage (remember most companies let you take a pretty large bag or small suitcase on-board with you now) you can keep these prices cheap. Whilst looking for flights we saw that with Rumbo.com the price per bag was 22€ extra! The other advice is to print everything out and take your ticket and information with you printed from home, some companies charge you to print your ticket at the airport!

If you look around and follow our advice then you’ll definitely find cheap deals and cheap flight offers to Spain no problem. Have a look around and enjoy a trip to Spain!

You can also download here in pdf format information on how to get to some of the best cities in Spain:

How to get to Salamanca 2009 How to get to Sevilla How to get to Granada

Salamanca Residence’s new Menu

Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

Since opening our new residence inside the Salamanca school we’ve organised meals for the students for those wanting to stay with us full/half board in Salamanca. The food is provided by the Café Ideal that’s downstairs at the school.

Ideal Restaurant's next door of Mester School

Ideal Restaurant's next door to Mester School

The Inside of the cafe is very spaceious!!

The Inside of the cafe is very spacious!!

Those of you who’ve already been to Salamanca you´ll know how close it is and how delicious their food is! They’ve organised for us a special menu for our students, opening specially for breakfast, lunch and dinner for us. There’s a copy of the menu at the bottom of this page for you to see the food that they’re offering. The breakfast is served from Monday to Saturday, from 9:00 to 9:30 before classes, and on Sundays from 10:00 to 10:30.

One of the rooms in the new residence

One of the rooms in the new residence

The menu has been put together especially for our students staying in the new residence! Breakfast includes a variety of teas and coffee, fresh juice, cereales and toasts for 2€. Lunch offers 2 plates a day, first and second course and desert, including bread and water with the meal and is only 5€ for everything! Dinner is available from 20:30 to 21:30 every day and is made up of one big meal, again including bread and water with the meal, and is only 3€ for our Spanish students.

The meals are as follows:

BREAKFAST – 2€

Served from Monday to Saturday at 9:00 to 9:30, and Sundays from 10:00 to 10:30

Coffee, tea, infusions, chocolate or milk
Cereals, biscuits or toast
Juice

LUNCH – 5€

Served every day from 14:00 to 15:00

Monday:  Spaghetti with Tuna / California Eggs / Ice-cream

Tuesday:  Ensaladilla / Pork / Pudding

Wednesday:  Habanero Rice / Fruit

Thursday:  Castillian Potatoes / Vienese Fillet / Ice-cream

Friday:  Lentils / Fried Fish / Yogurt

Saturday:  Coronado Delights

Sunday:  Gazpacho / Chicken / Fruit

DINNER – 3€

Served every day from 20:30 to 21:30

Monday:  Rumbo al nuevo Mundo

Tuesday:  Historias de Fray Marcos

Wednesday:  Legados de Palo Duro

Thursday:  Promesas del Gobernador

Friday:  Entremeses de Santa Fe

Saturday:  Tentenpie de los Quivira

Sunday:  Descanso de Nuestro Señor

Salamanca school’s new Residence opens up!

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009
The bedroom 312 with space for 3 students

The bedroom 312 with space for 3 students

Our Salamanca Spanish School has opened a new residence to our students, inside the school itself! The residence is one of many that we have all over Salamanca for our students, and provides full or half-board accommodation. The residence is brand new and occupies the 3rd floor of our Salamanca school!

Room 311, again with room for 3 students.

Room 311, again with room for 3 students.

It has room for 40 students and has rooms with anything between 1 and 5 beds, and a private double-room with a double bed. The residence is complete with computers and televisions in the rooms, and shower rooms and toilets on each corridor. The bathrooms are all brand new and are on each corridor of the school for the students. Each room has a shiny new television and lots of the rooms have a computer supplied, and all of the residence is fitted with free WIFI.

The bathrooms in the New Residence

The bathrooms in the New Residence

There are televisions in all the rooms of the Residence

There are televisions in all the rooms of the Residence

The double room, 308

The double room, 308

There’s daily cleaning in all of the bedrooms for all of the new residence, and a big clean once a week of the whole residence itself.

There’s even a terrace where the students can sit out in the day between class with views over Salamanca! and an area with drinks and food machines that’s available for the students 24hours a day. The meals for the residence are being provided by the lovely cafe/restaurant downstairs, the Café Ideal. They are providing a special menu for our students staying in this residence.

Room 301 with doors onto the Terrace!

Room 301 with doors onto the Terrace!

Staying in a residence is a great option for group trips as it’s easy to keep everyone together and even better if you’re in the building, nobody can get lost on their way to class! For the teachers it’s a fantastic way of making sure everybody’s safe and together, as there’s no need to cross the city to get to the school or wander around at lunch time.

The residence is only one option that we offer as accommodation in Salamanca, but also in Seville and Granada. The other options are a shared student flat or a home stay with a local family. The shared flats are a great way to be more independent, but they also require you to clean up after yourselves and look after the flat. Staying with a family is a really good way to get to see how the typical Spanish lifestyle is and try some proper home cooked Spanish food!

Another option that we offer is a private apartment, but this option is only available for over 18s. If you’d like any more information on the residence, or would like a quote for your group trip don’t hesitate to get in touch!