Choosing an Erasmus City: 8 Reasons to Look No Further Than Salamanca

Salamanca is a province and city in Castilla y León in the iberian peninsula. Home to Lazarillo de Tormes, Miguel de Cervantes and Yann Martel (the author of The Life of Pi), Salamanca is famous for its UNESCO World Heritage old city centre, it's slightly... changeable weather, and some of the best fiestas in all of Spain. After spending 10 months living in this beautiful city, it had well and truly captured my heart and there's not another city in the world I would rather have spent my Erasmus year.

For anybody who isn't convinced solely by seeing photos of the incredibly beautiful city, here are 8 reasons why Salamanca should be your choice of Erasmus city (in no particular order):

1. Beauty

I keep saying it, but Salamanca really is b-e-a-u-tiful. Everywhere you go you are surrounded by history - there are two cathedrals, the old and the new, countless churches, the most beautiful plaza mayor in Spain, and even the university buildings are made from sandstone and filled with culture. Furthermore, it rains about three times a year so even at the height of winter the city looks wonderful and puts you in a good mood when you leave the house at 9am hungover and stinking of kebab for a lecture you do not want to go to.

2. Cost of living

The prices in Salamanca are hard to believe; you can live the life of a royal for next to nothing. Privately owned flats can be rented for 150-250euros a month, depending on how big a room/bed is required, and 100-150euro a month for food and drink is more than enough. In fact, in the majority of restaurants in Salamanca it is actually cheaper to eat out or go for a few drinks in a bar with pinchos than it would be to cook at home. However I wouldn't recommend doing this every day as beer and tortilla don't really count towards your five-a-day.

3. Abundance of bars and restaurants

Not only is Salamanca cheap, there's enough choice to keep you in a different restaurant every day for months (again, not recommendable to eat tortilla and drink beer every day, but if health weren't an issue this would be the place to do it). Salamanca will forever be my number one choice for a night out. You'll come to love to hate, or hate that you love, the Irish Theatre and it's Tuesday nights.. 5 euro entry gets you 10 free drinks - need I say any more? There's a bar for every occasion, a café for every kind of hangover, and a restaurant for every possible craving. You will not go hungry in Salamanca.

4. The people

The people in Salamanca genuinely take an interest in you. You'll get to know your neighbours, the people you walk past every week, the man in the shop who likes to practice his very basic English with you every Sunday morning when all you really want to do it crawl back into bed. As an Erasmus student, you're likely to stand out a little from the crowd, and people will remember you and soon enough you'll have to start leaving earlier just to leave enough time to talk to everyone!

5. Prestigious university

Not only is the University of Salamanca an absolutely stunning site, it is also the Oxford of Spain. It is the oldest university in Spain and remains one of the most prestigious universities in Europe.

6. Location

Salamanca is a city with all the benefits of a small town. There's a real sense of community, and you get to know everybody around you. However, with Madrid less than two hours away by train you're not confined to the Salamanca bubble and it's easy to leave for the weekend, whether it be for shopping in Madrid or catching a flight to Barcelona from the nearby airport in Valladolid. Salamanca is big enough that you can avoid somebody you don't want to see, but small enough that if you lose your friends on a night out you'll easily find them again - probably after you've made a number of new friends who subsequently help you find them.

7. The food

I know this kind of comes under restaurants... but oh good lord, the food! The iberian peninsula is famous for its jamon, and there is very good reason for that. The jamon is Salamanca is some of the best you will find, particularly from the nearby town of La Alberca where the town's mayor is a pig which roams free on the streets. If you find it you must feed it and pet it in order to show it respect! And it doesn't stop there - they really know how to tapas in Salamanca. Even the 100 montaditos is better than most.

8. The language

We were always told to pick our Erasmus city wisely as the accent you return to final year with is likely to be the accent you maintain afterwards. In Salamanca, much like in Madrid, there is no prominent accent nor dialect. The University of Salamanca is well-known for its hispanic and language studies, making it an ideal place to perfect the language in a way which can be easily understood throughout the Spanish-speaking world.

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