What you can see on the Salamanca webcam
The camera is on the roof of a hotel on the west side of the old town and looks south-east over a sea of red-tiled roofs. In the middle of the skyline stand the twin towers and dome of the Clerecía, the former Jesuit college; to their right rises the tall bell tower of the New Cathedral beside its dome. Below the hotel a small square and a street lead down towards the monuments, and on the right a large modern stone building closes the view. It comes as a time-lapse of the day, with the sky above the city taking up much of the frame.
Salamanca webcam: the Clerecía towers and the New Cathedral
High on a hotel by the Plaza de San Blas, on the western edge of the old town, this camera looks south-east across the red-tiled roofs of Salamanca. The skyline is the city's signature: in the centre the paired Baroque towers and dome of the Clerecía, and to the right the tall bell tower and dome of the New Cathedral, all in the golden Villamayor stone. In the foreground a paved square runs down into the streets of the old town.
Because the view faces the midday sun, the towers often stand as dark outlines against a bright sky around noon. The hours to watch are late afternoon, when the sun swings round and lights the stone, and dusk, when the floodlights come on. It comes as a time-lapse of the day.
The golden city
Salamanca is known as La Dorada, the golden one, for the warm sandstone from nearby Villamayor that gives the old town its colour and glows in low sunlight. Its university, founded in 1218, is one of the oldest in Europe. The two cathedrals stand side by side: the Romanesque Old Cathedral, built between 1120 and 1236, and the New Cathedral, begun in 1513 and not completed until 1733. The Clerecía, begun in 1617, now houses the Pontifical University, and visitors can climb its towers for the view back across the city. The old city has been a World Heritage Site since 1988, and its Baroque Plaza Mayor, built between 1729 and 1756, is one of the most beautiful squares in Spain.
When to watch Salamanca
Salamanca is one hour ahead of the UK and Ireland. The camera faces south-east, so around midday the sun shines into the lens and turns the towers into silhouettes. Late afternoon and early evening are the times to look, when the stone catches the light, and after dark the monuments are floodlit. At about 800 m (2,630 ft), the city has frosty winter mornings and hot, dry summer days with cool nights.
Around Salamanca
Ciudad Rodrigo, a walled town near the Portuguese border, is about 55 miles (90 km) to the south-west, and the villages of the Sierra de Francia lie in the hills to the south.
Visiting Salamanca
The old town is small enough to cross on foot in a quarter of an hour, from the Roman bridge over the Tormes up to the Plaza Mayor. Trains and buses link Salamanca with Madrid, which makes it an easy addition to a few days in the capital.
