Digital Nomad Diary: Starting out in La Casa de Las Conchas in Salamanca
I spent yesterday morning writing from the Salamanca Public Library, housed in La Casa de Las Conchas, the Gothic house of the shells. I arrived a few minutes early before the 9 am opening, and stood in the rain with my umbrella I got in Dublin on the steps of the Baroque Clerecía Church across the street. Salamanca is so walkable, it’s hardly a street. One of my favorite things about the city is it’s so pedestrian. You see so few cars, usually only in the morning.
When the library’s giant, wood doors opened, I relished this gem of 15–16th century architecture all to myself, at least in this early morning time before the tourists arrive. I especially relish the courtyard alone. The mesmerizing well in the center, the gargoyles guarding from above fleur-de-lis and honeycomb designs. In the rain it was especially lovely.
I spent a few hours or working at the library and also poring over the wonderful displays of books in Spanish — everything from philosophy to Joyce Carol Oates translations. I flipped through a book of all the Gothic locations in Salamanca, securing my theory about the era’s attempt to restore the feminine presence, Mary with Jesus on her lap imagery, not a dead Jesus on a cross. I’ve written a haibun about La Casa de Las Conchas, replete with the secrets of these shells…. Venus, not Saint James. He’s only half the anatomy for a sacred marriage!
Browsing books is one of my all-time favorite passions. I’m sure it’s why I am so ADD — so many amazing subjects! Which too choose! It was a lot like my chidhood home — books of every subject around. Myriad interesting objects of every kind to explore out of sheer curiosity. We kids grew up in libraries our mother always took us to.
Afterwards, I popped a few doors down to have a cafe con leche and an empanada at El Alcaravan Cafe. I hear they have open mic poetry readings, sometimes in English. There’s tons of flyers advertising every kind of artistic or intellectual activity on its bulletin board at the front entry, ditto the public library — theatre, discussions, art. Heaven!
Roaming home I admired all the old bookshops and other favorite architecture. I love La Casa de Los Muertes, or house of the dead. I love looking at’s fascinating facade, so ornate. Last year an elderly man stopped to talk to me, filled me in on the story of the place. It had been for sale for 40 years. Can’t sell it since the murders that took place there — it’s deemeed haunted. What I could understand from the man was that a ghost had appeared when the former owners or a visiting couple were doing sex magic of some sort. Their bodies were found in the well across the way.
The house is located next to the Miguel Unamuno house on Calle Bordadore 10, where the Bilbao-born writer and professor at the University of Salamanca lived and died while under house arrest by Franco’s forces during the Spanish Civil war, which he had protested with literature.
Behind the Unamuno statue is Convento de La Anunciación, or Las Ursulas. It was under renovation last year, so I will have to pay a visit to this Carmelite Descalzados site that Salamanca is swarming with. Not far from Unamuno’s statue is the well the bodies allegedly were found and beyond that another lovely architecture that is now a nightclub The Camelot. Resoration is expensive, after all!
I popped into a favorite used bookstore, Re-Read, just steps away from here to scour its shelves and step out of the rain before heading back home.
