Monday, 16 October 2017
Reliegos to Leon
26 km today - 471 km on Camino Frances – 1,216 km from Le Puy - 313 to Santiago
Again activity starts about 06h. There was talk last night by some of getting a bus from the village about 6 km further on into Leon. As I am awake I get up, do my toilette, get dressed, put stuff in my pack and sit on a couch in a nearby common area to catch up on the days news: I want to get away about 07h30, still an hour before sunrise.
I am off just after 07h30 walking on the road, rather than the close by “official” path, and arrive at Mansilla de las Mulas just before 09h. This is not long after sunrise and, while lots of cars are coming and going it seems the town is still in a somnolent state. I, too, have decided to catch the bus for the 20 km to Leon. This will use up the 20 km credit left over from walking the 30 km Burgos to Hontanas once last year and once this year. (I used 10 km when I bused from Viana to Logrono in the first week). The streets of the town are narrow and no shop are open and get as far as the bridge out of town towards Leon. Under a portico I see a solitary man and think he is waiting for a ride: I do not see a bus stop. I return up another narrow street and notice some activity in the distant interior: a door yields and I go inside. It is a ubiquitous cafe / bar. “No hablo Espanol. Estacion autobus” I say to the woman behind the counter. Back comes, delivered pleasantly enough I can see, a fast torrent of words. I shrug incomprehension and deploy my tablet and open a translatiion app. She writes “near bridge”, again with a fast torrent of words, and “9.15”. It is just after 09h10, so I finish my coffee Americano and get moving. By this time the solitary male has three or four women under the portico and on the opposite side of the road I can now see a sign with the words “Bus Stop”. I ask one of the women “a Leon” and she nods agreement. The bus arrives about 09h40.
Just after 10h I am in cafe at the bus station at Leon ordering a cafe Americano and a bocadillo (sandwich) using a longish soft flatish roll and looking at Trivago for a centrally located hotel with user ratings of 8.0 or better. One, two short blocks from the Cathedral, gets my eye at E 70 and off I head. They can give me a room with a bath for E 55 including breakfast.
By 11h I am in the cloisters (again on the north side of the Cathedral) heading to the main chapel to say the morning office. In the main chapel (a large space in its own right, able to seat about 300 I estimate) a priest from an Asian country is saying Mass for a group of about 40. While not dressed as walkers, I get the impression they are on a pilgrimage together.
While waiting for the scheduled Mass at 12 noon I say the office and then walk about the cloister and the associated museum. A very modern addition is a chronology spread over six panels. First up are the characters from the Hebrew Bible with approximate dates, then the major events in the Christian Bible, followed by events since then, such as the Ecumenical Councils and Saints of note. The great schism or around 1000 AD is shown in bold and thereafter the events relate predominantly to the Western (Roman) church. Luther (1517) is mentioned as is Anglican (1549) and other similar events I didn’t particularly note.
Mass at noon is, of course, celebrated in Spanish. But the structure is the same as in Wellington, whether Anglican or Roman. I have the order of Mass for each day, including the collects, reading and Gospel, on my tablet and can easily follow.
Back in my hotel room it is time for a long soak and a lie down.
I didn’t have much for dinner last night and no lunch today. By 18h hours I am hungry and don’t wish to wait nearly three hours until the restaurants open. Next door to the hotel is Kedabra, offering beer and food: they show me a table and give me a menu. Of the six columns of offerings only two are currently on offer so I choose one. That one needs a cook and he wont be here for 15 minutes: that’s OK, I will wait. It then turns out they don’t have the main ingredient. I choose something else: the resulting plate is full to overflowing and I manage all of it. I pay and go back to my room.
And so to bed
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