Chapter 24: 2 Days in Leon – Another Big City, Another Big Church

This will be another twofer for reasons that will soon become evident. Sufficed to say, Leon very quickly became a stop I didn’t know I needed.

We woke up and had a lovely breakfast in the Hostel. It was warm and cozy and we met up with Gary and even ran into an American woman who we hadn’t seen since day 2 or 3 of the trip (San Francisco! Hey Vivian!) We had a great conversation and parted ways, agreeing with Gary that our first stop should be laundry and phone needs, as Gary still had some things to take care of phone-wise.

After we’d dropped off laundry, Becky and I toured the city for a while and I was not feeling great…my stomach was upset to say the least and we decided to head back to the room. I slept for an hour or so before getting up to throw up for another 2 hours or so after that. I was a mess. I’ve never been so sick. Becky was amazing and took great care of me, and as the hours ticked on, we told Gary we were going to take another day in Leon as we still wanted to see things and I was in no place to continue walking.

We went to bed, and in the morning, I felt marginally better…better enough at least to say goodbye to Gary in the morning and give him a hug and a “Buen Camino” as he departed. He thanked us and I went back to bed for an hour or so. We’re not going to lie – we miss him already.

Becky and I woke up slow. It was a nice change of pace and we caught the tail end of Breakfast as we showered and readied ourselves for the day. My 24-hour flu seemed to pass pretty quickly and we decided to go explore the city a bit. Lots to look at!

We clearly still did not understand how siesta in Spain works, as we once again leisurely strolled into a major city attraction (Leon cathedral) at 1:45 PM, and were promptly told to leave and come back at 5 PM. Whoops. Okay then. We found some lunch and did some window shopping, now that we were able to reliably trust Blakes weak stomach.

Finally we got into the Leon Cathedral. This one is not as large and grand as Burgos, however it’s known for its stunning stain glass work and something called “Flying Buttresses” – something Blake found much more interesting than Becky.

Afterwards we viewed the Gaudi museum. It’s located in the below buildings Gaudi himself designed. It was cool, but not – picture taking cool. Blake and I plan on hitting up the Familia in Barcelona in June, so this was kinda a primer.

After all the museum walking and sightseeing, we went out to a lovely restaurant for Asian food….. just a change from the same tapas and Spanish cuisine we’ve been enjoying all month. It was actually excellent. A super trendy restaurant in downtown Leon and we had a window seat so we could watch the rain pour down… on the way back to our hostel I snapped one last beautiful photo of the cathedral in the rain.

Goodbye Leon. It’s been a blast.