<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><HTML><FONT SIZE=2 PTSIZE=10 FAMILY="SERIF" FACE="Palatino Linotype" LANG="0">Hi Alberto, and welcome,<BR>
If I were you, on my first Camino pilgrimage, and had only two weeks at my disposal I would not start from Leon. Even although that city is only 300 kilometers away from Santiago (app. 200 miles), the route is up and down and up and down and it faces the daunting ascent to O Cebreiro. You may find yourself racing the calendar and missing most of what the Camino holds.<BR>
Why not start from O Cebreiro? You can walk down from there and have enough time to savor all the aspects of the pilgrimage:. your fellow pilgrims, the spellbinding nearby monuments, monasteries and churches, (in the tiny town of Furelos and its little church you are likely to want to linger for hours before its mind-awing Crucifix) , and your own sitting-on-the-side-of-the-road solitude with its wealth of unique insights.<BR>
You can visit Leon and its fabulous Cathedral and museum (don't miss it!), go to Ponferrada by bus, visit the Templars' castle, then take a bus to Villafranca on your way to O Cebreiro, and then walk to Santiago.<BR>
Surely, like most of us, you will be going back, again and again, and somehow someday you will find the time to make a longer pilgrimage.<BR>
Warm regards,<BR>
Rosina</FONT></HTML>