We woke up pleasantly to the plum colored walls of our room at San Pelayo, and not, for once to the rustling and scraping of other pilgrims getting their things together in the wee hours of the morning. Fortunately, Stella happened to read in the guidebook about either taking the bus into Leon (12 km away) or taking our life in our hands because of the heavy traffic and location of the path. Several other pilgrims also opted for the bus. We were in Leon well before 9 and found a nice little place to have coffee, tea and breakfast.
We saw our first McDonalds of the trip near the bus station. I always cringe when I see these and other American franchise exports and think of the Americans that actually flock to them for a 'taste of home.' Not to mention the non-Americans who think it's real food. I so rarely go to them here. Our choice for breakfast was SO much better! From there, we found our way into the old part of the city, which is lovely. A lovely city for walking, with a very human scale about it. Old and new blend well. A little cafe makes me feel right at home!
They are getting ready for a week-long celebration next week of St. Peter and St. Paul and so they were sprucing everything up by putting out window boxes on every conceivable window and balcony, planting new trees in planters on the squares, etc. 
Spaniards go in for public art in a big way. We toured the cathedral (but forgot to get our credencials stamped), 
Stella wrote postcards while I loaded some pictures onto this blog, then we toured some more, including St. Isidore. 
We also saw a neat model of the whole city done in bronze, and a building by one of my favorite architects, Gaudi.Once again, it is hard not to notice how much Spaniards enjoy and use their public places. They are truly lived in.
Their downtowns are alive and well and at the heart of the life of a community. They don't live with as much space or as much stuff or probably with as much money as most of us Americans do, but they live much more richly in terms of relationships, and laugher and food and those kinds of things that really make life meaningful from day to day.It was hard to leave Leon, because it has much to offer, but we decided to stay about 10 km further on in El Virgen del Camino. Again, a town that doesn't have a whole lot to offer, even though it is bigger than many we have passed through. It takes its name from an appearance that the Virgin Mary reputedly made to a shepherd on a hillside in the 16th cent. saying that a church would one day be there. Sure enough, there is one there. It was built until the 20th century, but eventually Mary and the shepherd were right. It's a very modern (by 20th c. standards) church, with the western end featuring large bronze statues of the 12 apostles, with the BVM floating a little higher than them. There are lots and lots of Virgins in Spain (notice the capital "V") - each of the chapels in the cathedral was named after "The Virgin of This" or that. By far, the most common name for a church is Iglesia de Santa Maria.
The alburgue in this town was nice and we actually cooked dinner for the first time by making up a soup mix and having some of our sheep cheese and crackers. It was a nice early evening for a change and not so heavy as eating out often is.
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