With an extremely cold start to the day, necessitating even Q to put on his jacket and me wearing T-shirt, long sleeve shirt, jacket and legs zipped on to my trousers, the breakfast after the first 3.5 hrs (19 km) to Mansilla de las Mulas was a very welcome affair.On this first stretch we encountered a group of what appeared to be 4 people and a dog. However, upon closing in on them, we discovered that the loud whistling coming from the group was`produced by a little girl of about 4-5 yrs old who was walking along side her daddy. Although daddy, apart from an already extensive backpack, also had a carrier for the little girl to use should she get tired, she seemed to be happy to “walk” (read “run”) alongside for the time being.
After breakfast we “only” had another 17 km to go before reaching Leon. However, these final few miles proved to be the hardest yet as the body was already in shut-down mode. Fortunately the landscape was far from boring, boring, boring,with the occasional hill to be climbed.
On reaching Leon we decided to try and find a hotel near the old centre and cathedral. The first, and by all appearance, only available hotel was a 4-Star place. However, the place turned out to be fully booked as proper double rooms are concerned so we are sharing a single room which means the bed is not quite as big as it should be.
A quick shower later and we somehow found ourselves scoffing away our first truly bad meal of the holiday: Burger King! This additional exercise turned out to be too much for the body to cope with so we decided to go for a 3 hr snooze prior to hitting the town for our well earned bottle of Rioja. Whoever said we aren’t allowed to also enjoy ourselves after a hard days’ work?
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