Castles

We're in Leon now, safe and sound (and a little sunburned around the edges... and the tips of this pilgrim's nose and ears).
Yesterday we climbed a mountain:

It had an amazing castle-ruin at the top:

After explicit "NO CLIMBING ON STUFF!!" instructions, we were released to explore. It was amazing. One could really tell that it was a very defensible place to build a castle: you could see the valley forever!!
My personal favorite part was our pilgrims' lunch on the old castle wall, which consisted of bread, cheese, and sausage. It was delicious!!

After exploring some small cave-like holes in the hill on the way down, we had ourselves some ice cream, loaded ourselves into our trusted Renault (car) named Timmy and headed on down the road.
In Fromista, we sat at an outdoor cafe and discussed the effects of antiquity on our experience until the town church opened. We ended up in the church at the same time as a group of German pilgrims. And then they sang. There we were, looking around at this small town's church, and suddenly the space was filled with gorgeous, human, a capella voices. We figured out that they are probably doing this at every church they stop at, and we wanted to be adopted by them.
In other churches and cathedrals we have visited, we have encountered piped in music, to "enhance the atmosphere" of the spaces. It's an interesting concept, and one we have discussed at great length. Some of us prefer silence in Great Spaces, and some of us prefer the musical enhancement.

Well, siesta time is almost over, and we'll be heading back over to the cathedral area of Leon for some shoe shopping, yarn shopping, sightseeing, and, of course, dinner.

Until the next,