Author: Thom

In León, we checked into the Benedictine monastery in the city center. While most of the pilgrims checked into the albergue run by the Sisters, I took a room at the Hospederia Monastica Pax, a hotel also run by the Sisters and located in basically the same building. Francine was arriving in León today, and I thought she might like […]

About a kilometer before León cathedral, we passed this place which immediately reminded me of Dungeons & Dragons. For all the world, it looks like the sort of tavern where you’d find adventurers resting after a particularly exhausting dungeon crawl. Date: 19 April 2013Place: León (Province of León, Castilla y León, Spain)Today started: Mansilla de las Mulas (Province of León, […]

After walking a while through the narrow streets of León, we came upon this delightful lion, seemingly basking in the sun. My late cat Abiu sometimes bore this expression when sitting in a sunbeam, too. Date: 19 April 2013Place: León (Province of León, Castilla y León, Spain)Today started: Mansilla de las Mulas (Province of León, Castilla y León, Spain)

As I mentioned yesterday, León is a distracting place. In retrospect, we should have stopped in this shop and picked up the map. Instead, we blithely continued on our way and got completely lost. Date: 19 April 2013Place: León (Province of León, Castilla y León, Spain)Today started: Mansilla de las Mulas (Province of León, Castilla y León, Spain)

The city of León is an astonishing juxtaposition of the old and the new. While this is true of many parts of Spain that we visited, it seemed especially obvious in this great city. This was the first scene like this I recorded, but it would not be the last. The only down side is that we were paying so […]

I have no doubt that Puente Castro began its life as a charming village along the Río Torío, with a thriving Jewish Quarter. Nowadays it’s basically part of the suburban sprawl of the great city of León. In fact, it’s officially listed as a barrio (neighborhood) of León, with the river separating it from the rest of the city. Date: […]

While this might have been the first time in Spain I saw a fast food conglomerate advertised, it was not the last. In all my Camino adventures, though, I don’t recall actually seeing one of the restaurants. In any case, you can certainly tell we’re approaching the big city – you don’t see a whole lot of billboards on Camino. […]

This bridge over the Río Porma is now relegated to the use of automobiles (and, weirdly, livestock). Humans and bicycles have their own, much more modern, bridge from which I took this photo. I always enjoy these funny little dichotomies of modern automobiles on a medieval bridge. The bridge is as long as it is because the river frequently floods […]

The Camino between Mansilla de las Mulas and León is a string of closely packed villages, the likes of which we haven’t really seen since before we entered the Meseta a week or more ago. As we go, they get less and less like villages and more and more like suburbs. Here we see Eamon walking through the first of […]