León

I'm in Spain at the moment, preparing to spend two weeks as an hospitalera (volunteer host) at the albergue (pilgrim hostel) on the Camino de Santiago in Ponferrada.  I'll be making beds, washing floors and, hopefully, getting some time to chat with pilgrims.

But now I'm in the nearby city of León, letting my jetlag wear off before going to Ponferrada on Monday.  León is one of my favorite cities. It has great food, good solid people, and beautiful sights. The most spectacular, of course, is probably the Cathedral, which is the heart of the town.  It is sometimes called the Bella Azul, the Blue Beauty, because of the brilliant blues in its stained glass windows.

The Romans had thermal baths on the site; in the year 916, the Spanish king Ordoño constructed a church at the location, which had been his palace, in thanksgiving for having driven the Muslims out of this part of Spain.  About a century later, it was attacked and nearly destroyed once again by the Muslims.  However, they were finally driven out permanently and a new building was built in the 11th century.  This in turn was replaced by a 13th century building, a full Gothic structure probably heavily influenced by the French gothic. It has been repaired and restored several times since then, and is presently undergoing work in the altar area.

The building has numerous alabaster high reliefs, with a particularly nice set of scenes from the life of the Virgin around the exterior of the choir.  You can see into the choir and through to the altar in the photo above. On the right side looking towards the altar, there is a Nativity scene, shown in this close-up.  The exquisite, expressive carving reminds one that Spanish religious sculpture reached one of its highest points in this part of Castilla in the 17th century.

Notice the remains of the gilt on the carvings.  These may have been painted; the figures on the exterior of the building were known to have been brightly painted, and the interior of the cathedral is thought to have been decorated with large bands of color (vermillion, particularly) that ran around the walls.

There are also features such as this huge St. Cristopher bearing the Christ Child, which towers over one of the side doors (visible at the right of the photo).

When they shooed us out of the Cathedral, I did the only logical thing and went off and had a caña (a small beer) and a plate of one of Leon's specialties, cecina, combined with the great local bread.  Cecina is an air-dried beef, sometimes lightly smoked as well. It is served drizzled with oil, in very thin slices like prosciutto, and is a true delight.  The local bread is a thick-crusted, "holey" bread baked in wood-fired ovens.  There's really nothing better.