My plan was to wait for the 11am mass, but when the bells began ringing at 8:45, and then a procession appeared crossing the square and heading for the large doors that had been opened….
…I picked up my pack and tagged along behind. The advantage of attending masses that follow the same format is that you get to know what’s going on. Every service I go to, I am able to participate more.
It was nice to hear the organ being played too.
After mass, I expected we might be hurried back towards the door, but we were allowed to linger before the tourist hours started.
Today’s visit was all about the windows. If I come again, I’ll look at something else – there is no shortage of things to look at, but today my eyes couldn’t get enough of the stained glass.
And I kept thinking of the homeless man I had seen getting up from his sleeping-place in an outside nook of this phenomenal building earlier.
Because I had known I wanted to visit the cathedral, and had to wait for it to open (which, incidentally, was quite different to yesterday – for an hour there was hardly a soul in the square), I had found a place nearby to go for breakfast. It was an unassuming-looking place…
…but it filled over and over with locals coming to drink and eat or pick up takeaways in newspaper.
It might be that these are the cheapest churros in town (I don’t know for sure, but the ones in the fancy places certainly cost more)
Everyone else was eating theirs with coffee, but I asked for chocolate. It was made on the spot – fluffy milk with spoonfuls of chocolate powder mixed in until it almost couldn’t pour out of the jug. Silky smooth.
I was thinking about how I was going to savour that Deliciousness when I came to eat my supermarket salad and supermarket lasagne for lunch and leftover salad and brie for dinner later! A fresh loaf of bread from a bakery seemed a good idea, and this grabbed my attention too:
A soft-inside-with-crispy-outside doughnut filled with a perfect custard and liberally sprinkled with sugar. When you’re in a city, it’s worth making the most of these opportunities.
The walk out of León was not what one would call astounding or spectacular or magnificent or even pleasant. In fact, on a Sunday morning it is perhaps worse than usual. Broken bottles and plastic cups littered the streets, and it seemed like there had been an epidemic of drunkenness last night. Between the piles of vomit and puddles of urine, it really was unpleasant.
Of course, I don’t need to tell you this – I could just show you the nice pictures
But they were the exception.
There were lots of things I could have visited in León, but in the interests of keeping my walking distance as short as possible I headed directly to the albergue just out of town. What a lovely place to spend a quiet afternoon – spacious, light and warm, with stunning photographs lining the walls. Coffee provided at 3pm, coke and fizzy orange available in the fridge. Cotton sheets on the beds, hot showers and a kitchen to boot.
Just before I was about to go to the basilica for mass, a French couple, who had looked at my journal earlier, asked me to draw in their credentials. My lack of competence – in the sense that I do not manage to draw what I see in my head – and resulting lack of confidence made me hesitate, but their accents were irresistible and I was honoured to bless them (and two moreFrenchies who appeared with their credentials when word got out!!) with a quick scribble.
Needing to get away for mass removed the pressure to do more!
I went with a Polish guy (lecturer of Polish literature at the university so we had already had interesting conversation about education and politics). As soon as we entered, we suspected it was no normal mass. The basilica was full to overflowing – at least 500 people downstairs and another 200 or so upstairs. Standing room only. Turned out to be confirmation and it took much longer than last night’s vespers!
SoloWalk2024 