October 03rd, 2015

     Beautiful Leon.

  The little running man.

     Yesterday morning  we slept in in our comfy beds at the Hostal San Martin until well after 8 am, which is shoo-out time at the albergues.
     On our way to seek out some breakfast we were talking about how wonderful it felt to be walking without backpacks. A few minutes later  we came upon a group of backpack-laden folks, their heads bent over the guidebook, pilgrims in search of an albergue - there's only one in Leon - or hostel.
   "Buen Camino," we said as we passed.  The pilgrims looked up and we recognized  one of them as a Camino friend from a few towns back. and she recognized us as well.  We hugged and she introduced us to her companions, and we all hugged.  She'd found herself a Camino family to travel with.  .

​.  Most Camino families stay together for a while, then break up as they start travelling at different paces, the members making new Camino friends or families that they'll stay with again for a while, until they again breakup and find new groups, and so it goes. Unlike Martin Sheen's Camino family in "The Way", most familes don't manage to stay together the whole time, though I've beard of Camino families who become so attached to each other that, even though they break up along the way, as each one enters the town before Santiago they wait for days until all the family members have arrived so that they  can walk into Santiago together. 
​      We found a splendid cafe for breakfast,

...after which we spent the morning visiting the Leon Museum of History, which displayed artifacts from the Castilla Y Leon region from pre-historic times to the present. 

      There was a translation of a Latin text found carved in stone:

...and I thought to myself, that's how I feel about my writing.
​     As the Camino de Santiago has been integral to this region since pilgrims began walking it in the 9th century, there was a considerable display on the history of the Camino.  My favorite was this translation of a 13th century document describing pilgrims:

       And we're still doing it.