Day 3, Proposal, Leon, and Llanes

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So Leon was the place I decided to propose. I thought about Ponferrada, but the timing never seemed right. Melissa wanted to see the cathedral since she had been sleeping when I checked it out the day before, so I agreed to go with her. The cathedral is easily the greatest building I've ever been in. It's vaulted stone ceiling soars to hundreds of feet, and the walls are almost covered in Stained Glass. The effect is amazing, as the walls are awash in light but the floor and walking area is gloomy. Melissa and I did the tour of the cathedral museum (more Jesus and an incredibly creepy statue of death). As we were leaving the cathedral we went to the front of it and were looking down on the altar, this is where I dropped to one knee and did my business. One hilarious thing was that Melissa was telling me earlier in the day how she had a dream that I proposed and instead of an engagement ring I had an emerald covered watch ring for her, which cost a total of $350. So when I proposed I said, "it's no emerald watch, but I hope it'll do". She said yes (of course) and we headed off to the car and on. The next stop was llanes, which is a coastal resort town about 3 hours north east of Leon. This part of the drive was incredible, as we entered another province in Spain that is very mountainous and just unbelievable, with the mountains rising steeply thousands of feet. There is a national park near Llanes called the Picas de Europa, and basically when you're in Llanes you are on the ocean looking up at mountains that are thousands of feet high. The only place I could compare it to would be Alaska. Llanes is in the big cider region of Spain, and I feel I should let everyone know that Spanish cider taste like rusty ballsac. It is not good. So I chased the cider with shitty Spanish beer. One highlight in Llanes though was dinner, I had a seafood extravaganza of mussels and garlic prawns, followed with a cuban cigar and some wine. Llanes is on the edge of the Rioja district of Spain, which is their world famous wine region. Every bottle of wine we have had has been phenomenal, and they keep on getting better. Llanes itself is a gorgeous town, and with a slight buzz we headed to bed and were excited for our next day, which was heading to Lagaurdia.

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Photos

Cathedral of Leon
This is where I proposed

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Cathedral at night