King and Queen of Leon

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We embarked on the second leg of our Spanish adventure yesterday, breaking up the drive between the Galician coast and the landlocked city of León with several interesting stops.

The first was a short trip from Lestrove - we pulled into the neighboring town of Padrón with the hope of buying some locally made queso tetilla as a gift to bring home, as well as some snacks for the car. As the name suggests, queso tetilla is formed in the shape of a female breast. One story I read explaining this phenomenon is that a church official in Santiago de Compostela ordered that the breasts be removed from a rather busty female statue in the front of a church, and in protest the local cheese makers began molding their product in the form of said appendages.

Turns out that Padrón is a bustling little town along a small river with lots of inviting outdoor cafés and winding, narrow streets that beg to be explored. Future visits to Galicia might need to include a more extensive stay in Padrón.

As to our mission - we found the cheese shop that had been recommended back at the Pazo de Lestrove, but it was closed on Mondays, which doesn’t seem uncommon here. Next door was the grocery store (Gadis), and there we found a bag of our new favorite honey-flavored cookies, Yayitas, as well as some gifts for folks back home: bags of Café Gallego, cans of olives stuffed with anchovies and boxes of Saffron that in the States would cost five times the amount we paid. We did even see queso tetilla, as well as another Galician cheese, arzua - a soft, mild cheese that I tried at the breakfast buffet that morning and can highly recommend. Both cheeses were in the refrigerated section, so we wondered whether they would survive without being kept cold the next few days. We passed on the grocery store cheeses and will look for others in León.

From Padrón we hit the highway headed north, then connected with the eastbound A6 toward León. About two hours into the trip we stopped to get gas and eat in a sparsely populated town where one of the four bars served food (of course, the last of the four we walked into…) There was no set menu, just the menú del día - a three-course offering that changes daily - and from the multiple offerings we chose a pasta with tomato sauce and chunks of beef to start, and the merluza (a fish called hake that I hadn’t previously tried) in a nice lemon and butter sauce. Both were very good, as was our ice cream dessert. Having seen how big the food portions were so far in Galicia, we opted to split one meal and it was more than enough. I still can’t imagine how any one person could have eaten the whole thing himself and still functioned.

The next stopped was a planned one - I had read about and seen pictures of a well-preserved Templar castle in a town called Ponferrada, which gets absolutely no mention in Fodor’s travel guide, but seemed worth a stop nonetheless.

Given the Fodor’s snubbing, we were amazed to see that Ponferrada (about an hour west of León in the Castilla y León region) is a big, vibrant city with a cool mix of very modern buildings and old stone structures, interesting shops, multiple fountains and outdoor cafés. Passing through the more modern part of town, the Templar castle emerges on top of a lush, grassy hill overlooking the river. It is an impressive sight, and is just part of an entire historic complex that also contains the old Royal Prison, which has been transformed into a museum, a basilica and two churches. Unfortunately for us, the castle isn’t open to visitors on Mondays, so we walked around the outside (in the moat, as we late found out; hey, this isn’t actually a walking trail at all!), got some cool pictures, bought a poster for my classroom and made our way back to the highway.

Another hour and we were entering León, where every 10 seconds the Tom Tom was saying, “Go left at the roundabout …” The roundabout is a very popular means of confusing vacationing drivers here, and in no city have we seen such a concentration as in León.

Vanessa had very ably navigated multiple three-lane roundabouts through streets lined by relatively modern and not overly appealing buildings when suddenly we found ourselves facing an open plaza dominated by an amazing palace of a stone building.

“That’s our hotel,” I said. And I wasn’t joking.

The Hostal de San Marcos is the city’s parador - one of a series of historic buildings purchased and renovated by the government and now run as hotels (and a growing number - including this one - as hotel/museums). For a very reasonable price we had reserved a room in what was originally constructed in the 12th century as a shelter for pilgrims on their way to Santiago. It became a monastery in the 16th century, at which time it was expanded and decorated in a much more elaborate style. The number and complexity of the carvings set into the stone of the front façade is mind-boggling. I can’t imagine how many different sculptors must have been employed, and how long they must have worked, to carve out each individual detail.

The place was later converted for use as a prison, but these days you pay to stay in the rooms, each of which overlooks some type of elaborate garden. I’m typing now from our balcony (it’s actually a bit cold!) overlooking a series of bushes that have been carved into mazes. We had breakfast brought to the room - a nice service offered here - and it consists of a pitcher of hot coffee and another of hot milk, an assortment of breads and rolls with marmalade, jam and butter, and a plate of cheese and thin-sliced cured ham products.

After we arrived yesterday, we made our way to some outdoor seating in a shaded area between the Hostal and the river for some tapas while a man played the accordion in the plaza just beyond the gates. We had cheese croquettes and small rounds of bread topped with anchovies in a light tomato sauce. We both liked the croquettes, but I could have done without the anchovies -a bit salty for my taste.

We toured the grounds, including the attached church and cloister, then made our way back to our room (lugging a room key that weighs close to two pounds) and took a nap. I am wondering how I’m going to fit in these daily naps once the school year starts again ….

Around 10:30 we went back out and caught a taxi into the older section of town, near the Plaza Mayor and the Barrio Humedo, famous for its plethora of bars and cafés. This part of town is everything the guide books and websites had talked about, making you feel like you’d gone back in time to when the Roman 7th Legion founded the city: thick stone fortress walls, a towering Gothic cathedral and a web of narrow, cobblestone streets opening up occasionally onto wide plazas.

We had a drink in a loud, smoky Irish bar before wandering into a Kurdish restaurant called Donner Kebab for some amazing roasted meat sandwiches. The blend of marinated, roasted chicken and beef with goat cheese and a savory sauce was awesome. Made us want to visit Kurdistan, although I’m embarrassed to say I had to ask the Hungarian waitress where Kurdistan actually is.

Another interesting note, the waitress told us not to tip her, as the restaurant owners wouldn’t let her have it anyway. Not sure if this is the norm everywhere in Spain, or just in the Kurdish restaurants ….

Our taxi driver on the way back to the hotel was making a call into a local radio station, voicing his opinion on nude beaches, which we were actually hearing over the radio as we got in the cab. One interesting point to note about driving here in León - some traffic lights also control a metal pylon that is situated in the middle of the driving lane. When the light is red, the pylon stands directly in the line of traffic. When the light turns green it submerges into the ground, allowing cars to pass over. We figured this must really keep drivers from running red lights here - until we watched a guy drive up onto the sidewalk and go around the pylon at a red light …

We will make our way back to the old quarter of town today to do some shopping before heading back to Madrid. I see a Kurdish lunch in my future!

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