Ah, León! Big city today. I made it in and found my albergue by 11:30, and once I was cleaned up and heading out, I came out of the albergue to see Ed and. Marty heading up the street! They had walked a lot farther yesterday, so they made it into town a lot earlier. But they were staying at the same place. I had sort of thought I’d be walking around León all on my own, so it was nice to find friends.
We went to a café for a lovely lunch – the kind where you actually have a waiter serve you at your seats. That’s lots of class for pilgrims! It was also fascinating to people watch, as we were sitting on the terrace. Many pilgrims were following the way right beside us, and we saw some more friends as they came into town. Of course, once we finished lunch and were going to head to the cathedral, everyone started closing up for siesta. Ugh. I know I just said yesterday that siesta is growing on me, but I wasn’t expecting it in a big city!
So we went to our albergue and took our siestas. Actual naps, people! That’s what pilgrims do! (Marty and Ed said they had an American in their room who is just starting her pilgrimage; she was sort of looking around like, what on earth is happening?!)
At 4:00, we went to tour the cathedral. It is a gorgeous piece of gothic architecture filled with light filtering through hundreds of panes of stained glass. Beautiful! Burgos’ cathedral felt excessive; this one was elegant in its simplicity.
After ice cream and shopping, we made our decisions for supper. And now have to wait until 8:30 for the place we want to go to open. That’s right – 8:30. It’s a different life here, people! So some more nice relaxing is in order. Ahh.
I have a pilgrim friend who is now a day ahead of me. We are Facebook friends and she gave me some walking and albergue advice today. It’s nice to have an idea of what lies ahead – that’s normally so rare! I barely even glance at the next day’s walk in the guidebook. It is really life lived one day at a time here!