After yesterday’s meltdown on a pretty epic scale – I think Alexa would have been proud of me – I awoke with some trepidation. I had told Dara last night I was going to get the bus into Leon, to avoid the dangerous ring road. But when I woke up this morning the combination of prayers (thank you everyone who said a prayer for me), 9 hours sleep, gels, creams, wine, ibuprofen and Compeed seemed to have done the trick. I could move with the alacrity of a French frog after it’s lower limbs have been served up with garlic but I could move. Remembering the wise words of my son – walking is just putting one foot ahead of the other – I slowly got dressed and headed out. The bus station option was pretty quickly closed out as it was, inevitably, closed or cerrado as we like to say around here. It was only 13 miles so shanks pony was my preferred option. It was hot again but learning from the pain of yesterday I blocked up, pasting the sun cream on top of the after sun cream.
However various evil taxi firms have clearly decided that Leon is the point at which pilgrims are susceptible to the call of an easier option. Every lamppost had these stickers on.
Temptation on every lamppost
The walk in was gruelling but I was glad I did. Otherwise I would have missed the extraordinary experience of being a few feet away from this stork who was completely unfazed by me.
Just amazing
So, into Leon. Dropped the rucksack off and went sight-seeing. The cathedral is great as it is early gothic and hasn’t been much mucked around. It does have a later choir stall that needs to find a new vocation as firewood but otherwise it is largely as it was built. It has the best collection of medieval glass (over 1800 square metres) in the world.
Early Gothic Splendour
I had intended only to see the cathedral but the hotel receptionist had mentioned at check-in, as one does, that the Romanesque St Isadore had become famous as a recent book had claimed that the Holy Grail was hidden there. So I had to go and check it out….if the Grail is there, then this looked like the right sort of church to hold it.
St Isadore
I decided that as I head into the mountains I am missing a warm top (because I sent the one I had brought with me home at Logrono). Also my jacket is too heavy, being the one I bought for New Zealand, not the light spring weather I’m getting here. So the receptionist – she was good value – gave me directions to a mountain gear shop where I bought a lightweight fleece and a sort of pack-a-mac. The young lad in the shop had pretty good English and we had a good time debating different combinations of fleece and waterproof, supervised by a manager who I think was his mum. I think I was one of their biggest spenders for a while as when I asked to buy a couple of tips for my walking sticks (I have punched through the ones that came with them), they said that they were a present for being such a good customer. As I was paying that song, "An Englishman in New York" was playing and the shop assistant sang “an Englishman in Leon”. Excited by my new purchases, I then went to the Post Office with some stuff - like my coat – that I was now kicking out of the rucksack and did my “help me I’m a useless Englishman” bit (I’m getting quite practiced at this). The guy behind the counter got a box, shoved the junk off his counter into the box and said “Peregrino?”. I replied “si” and he wrote on the sender section of the box “Peregrino, Leon, Spain”. I felt a bit proud of that. Dara, if you’re reading this blog, whatever you do, DO NOT OPEN THAT BOX. I did leave a warning voicemail as well. Let’s just say that the coat has been worn during some pretty warm weather and it will now fester in a box for a few days en route to England. Probably best to leave it at the bottom of the garden and I’ll deal with it when I get back. Maybe get Paul the postman to leave it a couple of fields away.
Hotel in Leon
Of course one of the joys of being in a city is that the normal world of TripAdvisor and the like kicks in. No ringing up some hopeless guesthouse and asking in dreadful Spanish whether they have a room for the night. Just pick the number 1 choice on TripAdvisor, book on the web and you’re done. I’m staying at the hotel above in one of the main squares. The room has Ac, a minibar – the proper pilgrim experience. I’m just eating in a restaurant 100 yards from the hotel where to do a sherry consommé, they bring a bottle of sherry to the table and pour a slug of it in. All washed down with a bottle of “Pilgrim” rosado. Very civilised. Yesterday seems a lifetime ago.
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