Else Beekman
A travel guide to Salamanca written by two foreign residents in Spain will soon be on sale in the city’s tourist offices. Turismo Salamanca has ordered copies of the guide in Spanish, English and Dutch. Some will be sold to visitors, while others will be used as institutional gifts.
The order follows a meeting with Salamanca’s councillor for Tourism, Ángel Fernández Silva, after he received a copy of the Spanish edition of Salamanca, timeless beauty and forever young.
Ángel Fernandez Silva with the Salamanca travel guide at the balcony of the town hall
Fernández Silva was enthusiastic about the book. In an e-mail to authors Jan Otto Landman and Else Beekman, he described it as an “estupenda guía de turismo de Salamanca”, an excellent tourist guide to Salamanca, and congratulated them on the initiative.
He also invited the two authors to meet him at Salamanca Town Hall during their next visit to the city. Soon the books will be available through the city’s tourist offices and will also be used as gifts by the tourism organisation.
A guide written from an outsider’s perspective
Landman and Beekman are both Dutch, but have lived in Spain for many years. The idea for the guide came after numerous visits to Salamanca and a growing interest in the history behind the places they were seeing.
There is certainly no shortage of things to write about.
Salamanca has one of Spain’s best-preserved historic centres, dominated by its Plaza Mayor, two cathedrals and university. The old city has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1988.
But many of the details that make Salamanca interesting are easily missed. The hundreds of shells on the Casa de las Conchas, for example, or the astronaut on the New Cathedral. Then there are the people associated with the city, from Fray Luis de León to Miguel de Unamuno, and the long history of a university founded in 1218.
The guide was written with those stories in mind. Rather than simply listing what to visit, it explains the background to the main monuments and the different periods that shaped the city.
154 pages, routes and more than 100 photographs
SALAMANCA, Timeless beauty, forever young runs to 154 pages and contains more than 100 original colour photographs.
Alongside the history and monuments, there is practical information on getting to Salamanca, parking, local festivities and food, as well as suggestions for tapas bars and restaurants. Several routes help visitors explore the historic centre on foot.
The book also looks beyond the city itself. There are suggestions for day trips to Ciudad Rodrigo and Ledesma, as well as the Sierra de Francia and villages such as Mogarraz and Miranda del Castañar. Ávila and Tordesillas are also within reach for those spending more time in the area.
English, Spanish and Dutch editions
The guide has been published separately in English, Spanish and Dutch.
For the authors, the decision by Turismo Salamanca is particularly welcome because the book was an independent project. The fact that the city has now decided to sell it to its own visitors came later, and was a very pleasant surprise.
How to order the Salamanca guide
The guide is available in English, Spanish and Dutch as a printed book. It costs €25, including postage to addresses in Spain. For delivery elsewhere in the EU, an additional €7.50 is charged for postage.
To order a copy, email salamanca@inspanje.nl with Salamanca in the subject line. Please include your name, delivery address and whether you would like the English, Spanish or Dutch edition.
Payment can be made in one of three ways:
- Bizum (Spain): 645 470 740, using Salamanca as the payment reference
- Bank transfer: IBAN ES98 1491 0001 2530 0012 9381 (Triodos Bank Spain), using Salamanca as the payment reference
- PayPal: else@inspanje.nl, using Salamanca as the payment reference.
Your book will be sent as soon as payment has been received.
About the authors
Jan Otto Landman has lived in Spain since the late 1990s and has a longstanding interest in Spanish history. Else Beekman has been writing about Spain since 2005 and is the founder of InSpain.news and Dutch-language InSpanje.nl. She is also the author of a Dutch travel guide about Málaga (Málaga, de leukste trips door stad en omgeving).