farewell Leon

Russ Oct 11
Hi everyone,
We left Leon this morning and are staying in Villar de Mazarife tonight, a mere 300 km from Santiago!  The last two days of walking - into and out of Leon - have been rather tedious.  We have been mainly in industrial outskirts and from time to time have had to cross highways and manoever around heavy traffic.  Think of it like walking to Victoria´s inner harbour from Langford higlands, staying a night at a nice hotel on Government Street and then walking back out the next morning. 
The trip into Leon was well worth it.  The core of the city, the old town, is absolutely beautiful, with many very old and well preserved buildings, interesting shops and of course fabulous cathedrals and other historic buildings.  We toured the cathedral.  It is significantly smaller than the one in Burgos but it is far more impressive, in my opinion. It is built in the true gothic style with very high vaulted ceilings and a tremendous number of stained glass windows.  We also toured the Pantheon.  It is the final resting place of a bunch of Spanish royalty, as well as having impressive 10th century frescoes - it is called the Spanish Sistine Chapel.  The Pantheon is also a repository for a large number of ancient texts, including a 10th century Bible written in Latin.  A fantastic display of medieval treasures.
We would have liked to stay another day in Leon - we barely scratched the surface, even though we had made sure we got into Leon early in the day to see the sights.  We were almost forced to stay because I reinjured my ankle on the way into the city and I needed rest to heal again.  However, we are still feeling pressure to carry on towards our ultimate goal.  I think we would like to return to this area sometime in the future - it is a stunningly beautiful and appealing inner city that we would be happy to enjoy again.
Tomorrow we set out for Astorga, about 30 km away.  From there the topography becomes significantly more hilly and I´m apprehensive about negotiating the hills.  It seems my ankle is fine on level terrain but steep hills damage it and that cuts down on our progress - we may end up with shorter days in future.  I´m still determined to avoid using any public transportation but who knows?  Linda is hanging in there - just some minor blisters.  I gave her a scare yesterday but she is a rock and always looking to the positive.
Russ