I walked the 20km to Leon by 10:45, so it was a good morning for walking! I felt good, it was still nice and cool, and I was ready to be back in a city and see the sights, play tourist for a day. I stayed in the Benedictine Convent hostel near the center of town, which was not spacious but was just fine, and we got to attend evening Completas combined with pilgrim blessing at night. The bad part about the camino going through big cities is that around the cities we tend to go through industrial parks, with car factories, potato processing plants, you name it, but lots of ugly warehouses and factories. Not so fun. So the road into town yesterday was very pretty leaving Mansilla at sunrise by the sunflower fields, but not so pretty after sunup nearing Leon.
Leon cathedral has fabulous stained glass windows that reach up to the sky like you wouldn´t believe. But no pictures allowed inside. I took one and got yelled at... not sneaky enough.
The basilica of San Isodoro was cool because it housed the royal Pantheon, where kings and queens were buried, and had a painted ceiling that is supposedly one of the best preserved examples of Romanesque fresco. It was actually really neat. But they did charge admission, with no pilgrim discount. Oh well, viva la tourist.
I walked around and around the city looking at different things, and man! there are a lot of shops in that town! People must like to shop there! The city is full of twists and turns and lanes and alleys that connect together, but by the evening I had my bearings and felt pretty at home. I found the outdoor store and bought thicker socks. There was this one building that I took a picture of, thinking, "it looks like disneyland!" and later found out it was designed by Gaudi. Figures!!
I was in the dorm with some very nice people, from Ireland, Germany, Spain, Brazil, etc. And even a few Americans.
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