Blogs from León, Castile & León, Spain, Europe - page 2

Leon Rest Day: I should actually call this blog Bedbug Day. The major portion of my day today was taken up dealing with bedbugs. I woke up this morning and immediately started finding more bites. We let the hospitalero know and it started a frenzy. He put all my clothing in the washer at the highest temperature for 2 hours. I got lucky because after that he told people to go to big laundry mat down the street. He also put Raresh's, Alex's, Livija' s, and my backpacks in plastic bags, sprayed Permethrin, and tied them up. Before we could wash "all" our clothes, we had to go to Carrefour, a local Wal-Mart type place to buy something to wear for the 3 or 4 hours it would take to wash and air dry our ... read more

Spain is a beautiful country with many contrasts what with the busy tourist beaches along the Mediterranean coast to the huge inland mostly barren mountains in the south. There are also acres and acres of olive trees and orange trees. Pete is loving all the variety of olives whilst I have never tasted such sweet oranges! 　 After meeting up with my old primary school friend in Barcelona we then ventured further down the coast and met up with another old high school friend who I had not seen for close on 50 years so it was an amazing catch up and a great evening. Then, last night we had a great old chin wag with a very interesting and fun Scottish couple and it was especially nice for Pete to finally have a decent conversation ... read more

Well, many kilometres really, but not a step closer to Santiago . This morning I wandered into town alone as John was having a rare sleep in and it didn't seem fair to wake him. The gardens along the rio Bernesga are very peaceful early; ahhh, the serenity! Reminds me of Bonnie Doon. After a short walk I had breakfast in a lovely cafe and was given a shot of orange juice and a sweet donut, gratis; Cafes of Australia take note! The Museo de León was having a Picasso/Dali exhibition so I paid my €1 and entered the best value exhibition I have been too. After critically examining the artwork, in a nice way, I approached the door thinking it was money well spent. The lady at the desk indicated I needed to go upstairs ... read more

Today we had a later start, 7am, and had decided to divert off the main route and walk 4kms along a road to reach El Burgo Ranero for breakfast. It was still dark for the first hour but the track was either quiet road or good gravel paths. After yet another tortilla meal (for me), we walked an uninterrupted 13kms to Reliegos, a small village 7kms from our destination. The early morning light reflected on the hay stubble was lovely and lifted my spirits as another day commenced on the Camino. The scenery was mainly fields of harvested hay or cornfields that dotted the landscape for much of the day. The occasional ruin, no not me, broke up the monotony, as did conversations with others along the way. I was talking to a couple from New ... read more

We had a four-day weekend recently, and it happened to fall over my birthday, so a friend and I headed east to the province of León. The border of the province is only about a two-hour train ride from Ourense, but the change in landscape is remarkable. We traveled through green mountains to more reddish-dirt hills, to eventually a relatively flat, drier landscape. Our first stop (about three hours along the train ride) was in a town called Astorga. I’d read that it was a cute town, and it also had one of architect Gaudi’s only constructions outside of Catalonia. Wikipedia told me there was a distinct ethnic group called Mastorgas there (but we didn't happen upon them). We easily found the Gaudi construction, the Episcopal Palace, which is right next to the massive cathedral. Astorga ... read more