Salamanca and Valencia

02-02-16

The drive to Salamanca was long, but well worth it.

Salamanca is a gorgeous town, the old town, with its winding streets, is full of fantastic buildings. The Cathedral, the library, and at the centre the Plaza Major.

Salamanca has a rich history, from pre-Roman days, being founded by the Celts, being beseiged by Hannibal, Through to The Peninsula War an the Spanish Civil War,
It is an inportant university town, and a UNESCO World Heritage sight from 1988.

Being a Tuesday night it isn’t exactly the biggest venue in our schedule, but is sold out.

And a really good, young crowd.

The owner is a nice guy and look after us well, even bought me a book of Los Aripiles, as the Spanish call the  Battle of Salamanca, Wellingtons fine victory over the French Marshall Auguste Marmont.

Wellington applied the oblique formation as used by Frederick the great, and caught the French as they overstretched whilst trying to out flank Wellington.

But The Duke was prepared for this and had hidden his troops behind a hill, so with rapid attacks on the overstretched French flank he defeated an army of 40,000 in under one hour.

Therefore making his reputation not just as a fine defender of a position, but as a fine attacking commander too.

We will visit the battlefield tomorrow on our 7 hour drive to Valencia.

Just heard that Barcelona play Valencia tonight, so the gig will be a late one, after the game finishes. Gonna be a long, long day.

04-02-16

The Battlefield was cool, hasn’t changed much since the action in the peninsular war. All the main points are as they were and we a great feel for how the battle progressed.

               The French position as seen from Wellingtons centre

Well so much for the rumour about the football affecting the gig.

We waited ‘til the end of the football, and needn’t have, the gig was packed, the wildest crowd so far, A stage invasions from ‘go go girls’ freaking out to Whole Lotta Love.

But our support The Golden Grahams did a fine opening set to keep everyone entertained, and also did a fine job of chasing the young girls after the show too, well there was a lot of them there to be chased, actually, they were chasing  during our performance too.

We had a few Brits in the crowd, from Newcastle and Yorks.

Before the show, after a long days drive, we said we wouldn’t do 3 encores like every other night but take it easy, well that didn’t happen , we did the full set and 3 encores.

A great show.

Got to bed at 4am, and here we are now, in our hotel for 3 days on the beach, the sun is out, the swimming pool beckons

AND!!! There is even a  medieval castle up the road to go investigate.

What a way to spend a day off.

I also hear that it is freezing cold in England today too. Ohhhhhhhh!

See ya later