The Big Walk

To Leon – Day 19

The road walk continue once again, and at one point we have to walk on the hard shoulder only inches from speeding trucks, and cut across motorway slip roads. Further on, we realise we’d missed a new part of the camino that headed through a series of tunnels. Luckily we haven’t far to go, and on the outskirts of Leon we reach a striking modern church with a lofty spire. High on the wall are huge bronze sculptures of the twelve apostles, with St James reaching out to point the way for pilgrims. A friendly nun accosts us and shows us round the church, before directing us on towards Santiago. We haven’t the heart to say we’re going the other way, so we have to wait until she’s looking the other way before dashing past, heading towards the huge blocks of redbrick flats which surround the city. We reach a delightful park with fountains and a stone footbridge over a river, leading to a plaza in front of the Hostal San Marcos. This was once the headquarters of another chivalric order, the Order of St James, and formerly gave accommodation to pilgrims. Today it’s a luxury five star parador with medieval rooms built around grand cloisters. The building was rebuilt in the fifteenth century, and the hundred metre wide façade is covered with panels with stone carvings depicting religious events. Sadly it’s well beyond our budget, though perhaps our hiking clothes wouldn’t be quite the thing in any case, so instead we find a homely pension above a shop.

It feels like cheating so soon after Astorga, but we’ve got to have another rest day here. It seems a wonderful city, more contemporary and lively than Santiago with hundreds of cafes and trendy boutiques, but still boasting a whole host of historic buildings. During the afternoon we visit the Basilica of San Isidoro, going on a tour of the early Romanesque Royal Pantheon within. This was built to house the sarcophagi of the kings of Leon, from the days when it was the capital of Christian Spain in the early days of the conquest. Its vaulted ceiling is supported by columns boasting capitals which look like they were carved yesterday, but are in fact the earliest biblical sculpture surviving in the Iberian peninsular. More stunning are the paintings on the vault itself, almost perfectly preserved from the twelfth century, showing both biblical scenes and vivid representations of the four seasons. They are the oldest paintings I’ve ever seen.