It will come as absolutely no surprise to anyone that we are kicking back at the 5-star Paradores hotel in Leon – and loving it! To be honest, I feel like I deserved this amazing break from shared (like with 22 bunks in our room last night) accommodation far more year as it was at my 20 day mark. That being said, I’m not about to check out and return to the municipal albergue and I fully intend to enjoy my eggs Benedict in the morning (regrettably I do intend to pass on adding the champagne to my orange juice though).
Our walk today was again in beautiful sunshine and warmth. Because it is some local holiday and because we were relatively close to Leon from the time we started (walk was only 20.4km total) we passed many locals out enjoying a walk of their own. It was so delightful how many of them stopped to chat with us and wish us the very best for our Camino – perhaps we could all take a lesson from them.
Things started very early (too early) at the albergue this morning. We were pretty much last out and on the road by 7:00am and that was actually a tad too early as it was still a bit dark. I have no problem getting up early, but I do insist on being able to see the road as it is way too easy to stumble with all the uneven terrain. There were actually some people up and out by 5:00 which seems a bit crazy – and I will confess I wasn’t super happy about being awakened that early. Oh well, to each their own.
The walk itself today was not nearly as pretty as most days as it was really all about walking into Leon which is a fairly large city (pop 130,000). As we passed through the village I stayed at last year (recall I went 6km further on the prior day last year) we passed a small park area that was absolutely exploding with irises in full bloom – how beautiful and how really amazing that I realized I had stopped last year as well to enjoy the same beauty! Funny – so often as I stroll along I can place each step from last year, who I took it with and what we were chatting about. Apparently my head is a font of relatively useless knowledge.
I can report that today I finally was singing in full, albeit, as always, in my head. Rosemary and I somehow got talking about complex pop music, including The Who’s Tommy. I love that music and Tom kindly bought me the CD years ago ..and I downloaded a lot of it onto my phone a few weeks ago to keep my selection of hymns and Monkee songs company for this year’s Camino. I’m pretty sure I made it the whole way through Tommy before we arrived at Leon.
Rosemary and I were also chatting about Monty Python and it has been agreed some education may occur this evening as she really doesn’t know any of it. I’m thinking the Spanish Inquistion (kind of necessary given where we are), The Lumberjack Song, the Dead Parrot sketch and if I still have power, the Argument.
Camino 2017 - the sequel 