We are liking Leon!

We left Mansilla de las Mulas shortly after sunrise this morning.  We had another beatiful day of weather and a comfortable easy day of walking; only 11.2 miles into the city of Leon.  We met with and visited with 3 other pilgrims that were staying in our small hotel last night: Karen from Virginia, Jack from Ireland and Kate from England.  It's fascinating to meet people from all over the world that come to walk this pilgrimage for their various reasons. Some we may see once and never again, some we will keep running into over and over again.

One thing interesting that we've been seeing lately are stork nests built in the highest location of the village which is usually the church steeple.  Pictured below is one we saw today.

We left the Palencia region of Spain the other day and entered the Leon region.  Leon is the capital and was once a Roman military garrison and base for its 12th Legion, hence the name Leon, from Legion.  We are staying tonight in a hotel just outside the walls of the old city.  There is every period and style of architecture here that you can imagine; Romanesque, Gothic and modern.  The building pictured below is called the Casa de Botines and was designed by Gaudi.  The Gothic Cathedral pictured below is the Pulchra Leonina and can be seen right out of our hotel window.

Since we didn't have that far to walk today we got into town in the early afternoon. After we finally found our hotel and checked in, we went out to a very nice restaurant in the center of town and spurlged on a nice meal.  Below are pictures of our desserts. We will be going out his evening again to explore the city and the shops after we rest a bit.  We could spend days exploring this city but tomorrow we will be on our way again.  My blisters are healing and we are feeling pretty strong considering how far we've come.  Today we started our 4th week of walking, and we have less than 200 miles to go! We are heading to Villar de Mazarife in the morning.