[Gocamino] Mansilla to Leon

[Rebekah Scott]

Dear Glenn:
It IS a very long day into Leon. The scenery is uninspiring if you stay along the highway. But most of the way is a hilly up-and-down path that parallels the big road. If it's really warm, there's a town about halfway with a lovely cool river running through it...we stopped for a swim! 
Later on though, as the shadows grew longer, we wished we'd saved the energy. The last bit into Leon is asphalt all the way, and a looong downhill. There were bus stops along the highway, and if we'd seen a bus we'd have been on it! 
But the problem was not so much the traffic, not like a few other bits of the route I can recall. Like Burgos, Leon has a lot of concrete and suburban sprawl on its outskirts, and when I did my Camino I found the waymarkings into town to the hostels unclear. But once you get into the Casco Antigua, there's a lovely little pension right on the Plaza outside the Basilica of St. Isidore -- La Boccalino. Clean little rooms, relatively quiet, a good price, central location, HOT water! and an Italian restaurant downstairs that makes wonderful pasta in rich walnut cream sauce. I liked it so well I stayed an extra day; it was a nice break from the hostels.
The one think I found lacking in Leon was laundry facilities. I imagined opening up a launderette there for pilgrims: "El Peregrino Sucio."   
 
It sounds like you're studying the path very closely. I've done the camino twice, and I find it's better if I don't over-anticipate anything. Stay loose and light, and you'll get a lot more out of it. I can guarantee you will never be "stuck."
 
Have a wonderful camino!
Rebekah  


Rebekah Scott, periodista
Westmoreland County bureau
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette USA
		
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