Escuelas Mayores de Salamanca — Attraction in Salamanca

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There are always hordes of people standing, bemused, and looking up at the façade of the Escuelas Menores.

Trying to see that flipping frog.

If you are the first person in your group to see it, you are guaranteed good luck all year. Or possibly just in your exams - there are different versions. Buy a lottery ticket anyway, if it's you.

:-)

But if you can't see it, and someone finally points it out to you, you can't believe that there is so much of a fuss made about it. Especially when it actually doesn't look like a frog at all, just a shapeless lump of plasticine on top of the skull.

TIP 1: If you want to find it yourself, stop reading now, because at the end I'm going to tell you where it is, in TIP 4. (But actually, tips 2, 3 and 5 are worth reading . . .)

TIP 2: You can buy wooden frogs, ceramic frogs, fluffy frogs, plastic frogs and probably hand-knitted-by-an-old-lady frogs in the tourist shops in the Rua Mayor.

TIP 3: Remember what the philosopher Unamuno said. Well, you probably can't remember because you don't know that he said it in the first place. :-) But he, a distinguished Salamanca resident and Professor, said: "It's not that they can see the frog, it's that they can see nothing BUT the frog".

In other words stop, turn around, and admire the whole of the little square, an architectural gem in its own right, never mind that flipping amphibian!

TIP 4: So where is it then?

Look straight ahead, then to the right - there is a column. About half way up there is a sort of overhang of the column, and there you will see three skulls - said to represent the dead children of Queen Isabel. The left-hand skull has a shapeless lump on it.

That's it. That's the famous frog.

TIP 5: Much more fun to go to the New Cathedral, built in 16th-18th centuries, and find the carving of an astronaut, and of a dragon eating an...

Students of University of Salamanca are greeted with the old legend of the frog on the skull. Tourists visit, stare and point at it and try to find it to attract good luck. The historical building of the University, known as the Colegio Mayor, started its construction in 1411.The Plateresque facade includes a medallion of the Catholic Monarchs. Inside, we can walk through the same halls as some of the most distinguished professors and masters of humanist thought, such as Antonio de Nebrija, Francisco Salinas, Fray Luis de León, Miguel de Unamuno... We can also see the cloister, chapel and ancient Library of the University...

It is the oldest University in the world: 8 hundred years old. The city's life stems around the 'Alma Mater' so the environment is young and unconventual. The olden part of the city is barroque plateresc, tipical of Salamanca. Has an enomous history. If you care for all this you must visit this place. If you are a student interested in Spain this is the...