León | Day 15

We made our way from Mansilla into the center of León. What an incredibly beautiful city. This is definitely one of the higher end cities of Spain, at least the center of the city.

Our hotel was literally two blocks from the main cathedral. Walking around the corner and seeing it really takes your breath away. There’s quite a history to this cathedral. Steve told me that hundreds of years ago, they attempted to restore it, taking the top off, but then the walls started crumbling. They were able to stop that and get a new top on it and stabilized.

The food here is incredible. I had a huge, beautiful salad and soft artichokes with the ham bits in a wine sauce. I was stuffed, but I had to go out and find a bottle of water to fill my pack bottles. I passed a small, but famous pizza place, stopped to get a beer and was given a slice of pizza to sample. I ended up buying a whole pizza and taking it back to the room and gobbling down four more slices. I feel like Jabba the Hutt.

I did get a chance to go to this amazing sports store today to replenish my hydration tablets and protein bars. I had to buy a new raincoat because the one I was wearing was not repelling water very well at all. There was a security guard at the front door that look like Mr. Clean with weapons. I think he was about 7 feet tall and was very curious about our activities. I would call it the stink eye.

I toured a museum dedicated to dragons. One of the pictures you see is a statue of a warrior stabbing an alligator.

I have to go now, I think I’m having chest pains from too much pizza 😳😭 and I’ve got to start hiking at 6 AM tomorrow morning and do 15 miles.

We have less than two weeks left on our hike and it’s both exciting but kind of sad. We have some very long days ahead of us, in 28.5 and 30 km segments. I’ve got to stop eating so much.