Leon

As I think I mentioned, I decided to have two nights in Leon. I have been making good time and Leon was supposed to be a good place to look around.

It was a city but it was so relaxing having a room to myself and nowhere to get the next day. I had thought I would just wake up as normal but with proper shutters and no-one jiggling the bunk or rustling their pack early I slept until 9.45am! I must say I was initially a bit disappointed because it was Saturday and I needed to do anything that required anything to be open before siesta time. First on the list was to go to the cathedral and watch the restoration work taking place on all the stained glass. However that proved a non-starter as the view was from a long way off and the explanation only in Spanish. So after a good look through the cathedral itself it was off to have a look around other points of interest that I had found at the tourist info place.

From the point of view of being able to say that I had 'done Leon' it was not a successful day but I loved it. The non success was due partly to the lateness of my sleep in but also the fact that it was still squally rain and with one set of clothes still in the drying room upstairs in the pension I couldn´t afford to get my only other set of clothes wet (and I was damned if I was going to wear that butt ugly rain suit all day!)

One of the places that no-one mentioned but I always enjoy was the market.I always manage to see something I have never seen before (see pics soon of hooves split open, skinned heads of goats with all flesh and eyes just no skin, whole rabbits the same way): And I continued my exploration of morcilla. I saw morcilla sausages hanging up on strings with a use by date 6 months hence, looked around for someone who might be bi-lingual (anyone in their 30s is my first pick) and found that I could buy these things and eat them as is even if it was more usual to give them a couple of minutes on a dry grill first. It had to be done and as I needed to shop for food for tomorrow and Monday anyway that was the first item in my bag. Item two was a wedge of nice stinky sheep cheese!  Item three which I do want to try is botillo. From what I can understand it is a whole stomach lining (or what I don´t know) filled with all kinds of offal and things. Sounds a bit like Spain´s answer to haggis. Anyway it is a specialty of a town I pass through in a couple of days so I am hpoing it will be on a lunch time menu. It is not something I know how to tackle in an albergue kitchen.