León, Astorga, and Lugo

This weekend Juan and I took a trip to León, Astorga, and Lugo. We first drove to León, which is about three hours from La Coruña. On our way there we saw Astorga off the freeway. It looked like an interesting town, so we decided to put it on the agenda for the way home. We got to León just before lunchtime, so we walked along the Paseo de la Condesa, a riverside walkway on the bank of the River Bernesga, to the Hostal de San Marcos to have lunch. The hostal was built by the Knights of Santiago and has a very elaborate façade. The building was once a hospital, a hospice, and a prision - now it is the country's largest parador (a country owned hotel that is set within a national monument). We were able to explore inside the hotel and see some of the artefacts contained within the courtyard and hallways.

Juan and the Hostal de San Marcos

Lunch was good - after I ordered the waiter looks at me and says, "Ah! Coke con Merluza, debes ser Americana." (Ah! Coke with 'white-fish', you must be American.) Ha! I was very embarrassed. Yes, I could have ordered a white wine with my fish, but I wanted a coke. The waiter went on to tell us about a trip that he took several years ago to NYC and California, so I think he was happy to have some Americans there to tell his story to.

Kim and the Hostal de San Marcos

After lunch we walked around some more, stopping at the Basílica de San Isidoro (a church built in 1149), Casa de Botines (a building designed by Antoní Gaudí), and Palacio de los Guzmanes (a really nice mansion).

Cathedral de León

The highlight of the trip - by far - was the Catedral de León, built in the 13th century. I can not even describe how amazing this place is. If you're planning a trip to Spain, it is definitely a must-see. I completely agree that this is one of the "1000 Places to See Before You Die". The outside of the cathedral is beautiful. It is very gothic with flying buttresses and soaring towers. The inside is just breathtaking. You walk inside and all you can do is say "wow". There are stained glass windows everywhere - but very tastefully done. Some of the stained glass windows are over 110 feet high. All-in-all, stained glass covers over 18,000 square feet.

León is also a very fun place for nightlife! We had heard that one area of town was very popular in the evening for tapas and drinks. We decided to just hop from restaurant to restaurant and try out several different places. We spent a total of about €9 ($11) for the entire night!! That included drinks and tapas from four different restaurants. Very fun and wallet friendly - can't beat that!

Sunday morning we drove to Astorga. We were expecting it to be a very small town, but there was actually a lot to do there. They even have a chocolate museum! The big attractions for Astorga are the cathedral and the Gaudí palace. After seeing the cathedral in León, this one was a bit of a let-down, but it was still very nice.

The palace was commissioned by Bishop Grau in about 1887 after a fire destroyed his residence. It was completed in the early 1900's. It is now a museum, but the original Gaudí architecture remains.

We drove next to Lugo, a town about an hour from La Coruña. The interesting thing about Lugo is that it is still completely surrounded by its original 'walls' from medieval times. The walls are about 33ft high and are about 2 miles in circumference. You can walk along the top of the walls and just imagine the soldiers up there protecting the city with their bows & arrows! There is also a nice cathedral in Lugo (do you sense a theme with the cathedrals?) - it is modelled after the cathedral in Santiago de Compostella.

All-in-all it was a very cool trip. I would be happy to go with any visitors back to the cathedral in León. It is very much worth the drive.

We arrived back in La Coruña on Sunday evening and walked right over to the swimming pool! I was very excited to try it out. I was a little bit nervous because I didn't know the locker room procedures, but Juan decided to help me out by going into the men's locker room and telling me how things were done in there. It didn't really help much… I won't go into too many details, but it was very frustrating. It wasn’t even so much a language issue as a not having change for a €2 coin issue… I think I have it figured out enough to at least not look like a complete idiot next time I go.

Tomorrow I am going to go shopping. Juan needs some goggles - his were broken or something, so he didn't bring them from Cambridge. Swimming in a salt water pool is not good without goggles! We ended up sharing one pair - so that didn't make for a very good workout ;)

Another motivating factor for going to swim tonight were the showers at the club. We currently have no gas for the house, which means no hot water and no stove. As I was doing dishes before leaving for León I noticed that the water was getting colder and colder. I checked the little water heater flame and it was getting lower and lower. We were out of gas in the tank! There was a spare tank in the pantry, but when we hooked it up it was empty too! Ack. We have a call in to the gas guy to bring us some new tanks, but as of Sunday night we haven't heard from him. Hopefully he'll come by on Monday!

I am also going to be working this week to plan the Rome trip agenda. Juan's cousin was nice enough to let us stay at her house! They are going to be out of town for the weekend and offered their place to us so we could avoid expensive hotels. They live very close to several of the touristy sites, so it should be perfect! Hopefully we'll get to see them on Monday before we head back to Spain.