Sahagun to Leon

Sahagun to Leon 

And then there were three.

Last mural as we head to the train station. We needed to make up some time. We were getting bored walking the Meseta so decided we could pop ahead to Leon and make up a few days.

At the train stations or bus stations we have found that we are not the only pilgrims. Some are finishing their Camino,  some are starting and many are like us and just moving  forward.

We arrived at the Leon train station and we stopped to get our backpacks sorted out. All of a sudden Roz says, "I don't believe it." There stood a man with long hair and a  beard. A Jesus figure. I figured it was some curler she knew. But no it turned out to be her oldest son who had flown in on Sunday waiting for us to show up. The cool thing is he had planned it for over 2 months and everyone had kept the secret. Even my family knew. I guess the big thing was that Wes had managed to keep it secret even going so far as to tell Jarrod that if his mom asked he was working at one point when Wes had said Jarrod wasn't available for a family call. It turns out he had lots of overtime and his boss had walked the last half of the Camino to honour his own father after he passed away on the Camino. He allowed him the time off. So now we are three.

Leon is a beautiful city. A mix of old and new.

Mom and son. 

The Cathedral. Of course our hostel was just off the square. I love that Spainish cities are made up of different squares or plazas. We dropped our backpacks at our hostel and Jarrod went to his place and got his credential so he could get his first stamp. This is Santa Maria de Ragade Cathedral of Leon.

Two of our Camino family. Canadian David and Sueyeung from Korea.

Jarrod is as tough as Roz to get in pictures.

While we waited for our hostel to open we decided to take a tour of the Cathedral.

These Cathedrals are now basically museums but I would love to hear mass in them as the acoustics would be amazing.

The Leon Cathedral has been plagued with problems from the beginning.  The simple lines with mimimal walls has lead to challenges over the years. There is a legend  about a mole, that every night this mole would come and undermine all the work that had been done so they caught it put the skin on the wall.

Much of the weight of the walls was reduced by putting stained glass in. The higher the stained glass window the more important and closer to God the window was.

In reality the structure was built over Roman hypoclaust and thermal baths.  There was moisture and water seepage that caused problems for the master builders and their pillars. As well  inferior limestone stone quality had little resistance to the atmosphere. Because of all it's problems, many people over the centuries have expected it to collapse.

The center nave at one time had a dome over it (one attempt to solve some problems) as stones were falling from the ceiling. This caused cracks to appear.  Another architect had the whole dome,  roof and one outside wall removed but that made it even more unstable. Consequently the Cathedral has had continuous and complex restorations.

This is the central alter. Over the years it had a big Baroque piece built over it. When the last restorations were done they decided to remove it and go back to this lovely simple alter.

This is the other end where the choir and organs are. Unlike Burgos this one doesn't have as many tombs and chapels off the center. They are there but I didn't want to post that many pictures.

The cloister.

The seal of Leon.

After the Cathedral we went to Jarrod's place to do our laundry. Unfortunately he only had a washing machine so he had to sleep with our laundry as it didn't dry. Too much humidity in the air I think. Jarrod's place was conveniently down one street over from ours.

A pizza dinner on the square with the Cathedral.

Our hostel. They originally gave us two upper bunks but when Roz tried to climb in the ladder really hurt her foot so they opened up another room that we ended  up having  to ourselves. Looking pitiful has worked for us. A great little hostel. Tomorrow the three of us walk.

I love the night lights on the Cathedral.