San Martin del Camino - 280 km (ish)

Yesterday I was in Leon, which is really a beautiful city. Lot´s of narrow windy streets, and a beautiful cathedral with some amazing stained glass. There is also the barrio humedo, where you can walk from bar to bar drinking wine and having tapas at each one...hacer tapeo. Delicious.

As it´s Semana Santa, we´ve also been seeing lots of processions in the towns along the way. Almost everyone has at least from tomorrow to Sunday off, and a lot of people the whole week, and apparently the whole country just moves around for the week (everyone in Madrid goes to Seville, everyone from Seville goes to Barcelona, everyone from Barcelona goes to Leon, etc. etc.). Last night in Leon we watched a very somber procession, with drums and the different colored robes and the Klan-esque hats, and they were all going to the cathedral to free a prisoner. Apparently it´s been a tradition for 8 centuries or something and the still do it (although now there are rules that it can´t be a murderer or anything else serious).

Today the walk out of Leon was pretty ugly, through an industrial zone, but tomorrow and onwards will be pretty much away from any major cities. The meseta is ending and I can see the mountains ahead that I´m going to have to climb over in the next few days. Been having great luck with the weather so far so let´s hope it continues!