Plaza de Anaya north balcony

This is the best vantage point of the city. 

On the upper platform of the New Cathedral, it allows the visitor to walk among flying buttresses, pinnacles, and gargoyles. From it the east-north-west face of the city can be seen, including the Plaza Anaya, La Clerecía, the University cloister, and the Convento de San Esteban. This new viewpoint of the city shows us not only its major monuments but also its urban layout.

This balcony gives us a unique view of historical Salamanca. From the balcony of the Flat-topped Tower the southern part of the city can be contemplated looking towards the river and the plain, and from the north balcony the universal monumental Salamanca of the students that is silhouetted on the horizon like a “thicket of towers”. From this urban vantage point many historical buildings can be seen: the hill known as the Cerro de San Vicente where the city originated; the historical building of the university, with its steeple culminating the chapel; the Colegio del Arzobispo Fonseca which is one of the four colleges of old Salamanca; La Clerecía and the Universidad Pontificia, an imposing architectural ensemble sponsored by Philip III and Queen Margaret of Austria in 1611; the  Rúa Mayor, a true artery of the city; the Casa de las Conchas, built in around 1493 under the patronage of Rodrigo Arias Maldonado; the Church of San Martín at the end of the Rúa Mayor, the first Romanesque church in Salamanca; the Plaza Mayor with the façade of the Town Hall in the background; the Plaza de Anaya, designed during the French occupation in 1811 by General Thiébault; in the Plaza de Anaya stand the Church of San Sebastián and the Palacio de Anaya itself, the former College of San Bartolomé, which once welcomed illustrious personages who studied at the lecture halls of Salamanca; and finally in a glance towards the east the Convento de las Dueñas (Reverendas Madres Dominicanas) and the Monastery of San Esteban (Reverendos Padres Dominicanos).

After this great architectural complex, we still have to look back to discover a new vision of the cathedral ensemble with its imposing Belfry Tower piercing the skies of Salamanca, the dome of the New Cathedral, pinnacles, flying buttresses, and cresting, and in the background just before descending the spiral stairway, the magnificent Torre del Gallo.