Camping in Salamanca: Iberian dehesa, historic sierras and the golden city
Salamanca has a well-earned reputation as a university and monumental city, but the province offers much more than the capital. Salamanca's Plaza Mayor, in golden Villamayor stone that changes colour with the daylight, is one of the most beautiful in Spain. The university, founded in 1218, fills the city with students from all over the world and gives it a singular energy. The Romanesque old cathedral and the Gothic new cathedral, attached to one another, are a compendium of eight centuries of religious architecture in a single building.
The Sierra de Francia, in the south-west of the province, is a world apart. Villages such as La Alberca, declared the first Historic-Artistic Site in Spain in 1940, Mogarraz with its facades covered in portraits of residents painted by Fermín Santos, Miranda del Castañar with its walls and cobbled streets, or San Martín del Castañar are a succession of rural architectural beauty that is hard to match. The Batuecas-Sierra de Francia Natural Park has routes through chestnut, cherry and oak woods, with the Batuecas valley, a deep ravine with cave paintings and the old Carmelite monastery, as its high point.
The Arribes del Duero, at the western end of the province, form, together with the Zamora and Portuguese stretches, one of the most spectacular landscapes of the Iberian Peninsula. The Duero and its tributaries have carved canyons up to 400 metres deep into the granite, creating a Mediterranean microclimate where almond, olive and orange trees and vines grow in the middle of the Castilian plateau. Birds of prey, especially the golden eagle and the Egyptian vulture, nest on the rock walls. Ciudad Rodrigo, near the Portuguese border, has a Romanesque cathedral and a very well-preserved walled ensemble from the 12th and 13th centuries, and its bull carnival, declared of International Tourist Interest, fills the city in February.
Salamanca's cuisine revolves around the Iberian pig of the dehesa. Guijuelo ham, with its own designation of origin, is one of the most highly valued in the world. Hornazo, a bread roll filled with chorizo, loin and egg that students eat on Easter Monday (lunes de aguas), farinato, chanfaina and patatas meneás are dishes found nowhere else. The campsites are spread across the sierra and the arribes, with options for every type of accommodation, from tents and caravans to bungalows and glamping areas at some establishments.
Featured campsite
Featured with offers
Campsite with offers
Campsite