First of all, if you wondered or might wonder sometime in the future, who the Queen was in yesterday’s selfie, it was Queen Urraca I of Leon & Castile. She reigned from 1109-1126.
As we said yesterday, we love our room.
First of all, it’s in the heart of Leon centre. It’s less than a 10 minute walk to the Catedral. It’s away from the crowds, if you like, but you can easily join the crowds with a three minute walk. It’s less than a two minute walk to a pharmacy, a fresh produce market and three bar/restaurants.
“Lodging City, Barahona 7” is a modern, 4 story collection of rooms, each named for a different city of Europe. Ours is Estocolmo, the Spanish name for Stockholm. The photos and murals in the room are of Stockholm.
The owner and manager of the property lives on or near the site and is professional, available, knowledgeable and helpful based on our first-hand experience in 2023 and 2024 .
We’ve stayed in over 200 different accommodations along the Camino Frances during our 5 plus Caminos. We’ve stayed in three other properties in Leon prior to 2023. We believe this property is the best in all categories, anywhere, at any price. As for the cost: 75€ all inclusive.
If and when we ever return to Leon to visit for any reason, this is our first choice and we highly recommend it.
Now, a little history of one of our favorite Camino Frances places:
León began as a Roman military encampment in 29CE and developed into a permanent settlement charged with protecting Galician gold on its journey to Rome.
Visigoths took the city in 585, only to lose it to Muslim invaders in 712. The city was reconquered by Ordoño I around 850, who initiated a building boom and welcomed Mozárabic refugees (Christians living under Muslim rule). The city was leveled in 988 by Al-Mansur’s troops.
Rebuilding began soon after, and León flourished as a wool industry center. In 1188, the city hosted the first Parliament in Europe under Alfonso IX and became wealthy enough to construct the astonishing cathedral.
León’s finest treasure is its sublime Gothic cathedral featuring 1,800m² of magnificent stained glass windows from the 13th-15th centuries. Without a flashy central retablo, the cathedral lets the streaming light steal the show. This is the fourth church on this spot, began in 1205 and completed in record time (about 100 years).
Ok, history lesson over, for now…. back to the present…
After sleeping late this morning, we walked a few steps down the street to Marbella restaurant for breakfast, then returned to our room to wash and dry all our clothes, taking advantage of the previously mentioned room facilities.
We couldn’t resist the comfortable arm chairs in the room, so we read and blogged while completing our laundry until our mid-afternoon lunch/dinner.
We headed back to Restaurant Trances after our good experience there yesterday.
Today we both had Ensalada Rusa for the first course.
For the second course, Linda had free-range roasted chicken and Jim had an Andalusian version of veal scaloppini called Escalopines al Cabrales. The veal was covered with a tasty white sauce from Cabrales blue cheese… considered one of the world’s greatest blue cheeses. It is made from the milk of cow, sheep or goats exclusively from a small area of eastern Asturias, Spain and produced in the same area. This particular type of cheese is controlled like a fine wine. If bought locally, it costs over $20/lb. Recently, a single wheel of Cabrales Cheese won first place in a cheese festival competition and was later auctioned off at $32,000!!’
For dessert, we both had homemade mousse: Lemon for Linda, Chocolate for Jim… topping off another very nice meal… for 15€ each.
Jim stopped by an ATM to beef up our € stash as ATM’s can be hard to find in many of the places we will pass the next week or so.
He also snapped a few photos of the Catedral (to supplement the above history lesson). Unfortunately it was closed for inside viewing most of the afternoon.
We chilled for the rest of the afternoon and made our plans for getting back on the Camino tomorrow morning.
Jimandi 