Villar de Mazarife to Astorga

Today was a pretty long walk but tonight we're almost to the mountains! We can even see a small patch of snow up there. It took most of the day for Corrie to convince me that it is really snow but now I'm even more excited about tomorrow's hike up. We did an early start today and one of the things we noticed is that it's getting light noticeably later now. I knew it was still too close to the solstice to have lost much daylight yet so I did some mental math on the trail. Turns out we really have walked far enough to have a noticeable affect on the time of sunrise. I looked it up to double check tonight and we've managed to push sunrise back 22 minutes! That gives me a new appreciation for how far we've walked. Also, we're sleeping in 20 minutes tomorrow! 

Our delayed sunrise was still very nice. 

Just another impressive stone bridge.

If you're practicing for a summer Camino in NM you should be pretty well set...

One of the really awesome things about walking the Camino is all the water fountains. This one was particularly fancy. The statue also gets a drink when you fill up a bottle...

The bishops palace in Astorga.

Leon to Villar de Mazarife

We spent most of the morning walking though the suburbs and industial district of Leon. Corrie and I have decided these are definitely our least favorite terrain on the Camino. After breakfast we opted for an alternative Camino route that took us away from the main highway for the rest of the day. It adds a few km to the hike so there are far fewer pilgrims on this route despite a reputation for better scenery. I think there are only two other couples in our albergue tonight.

Leon cathedral lit up last night after dinner. 

The fountain in front of our hotel in Leon. 

Once we cleared the city it kind of felt like we were walking through NM the rest of the morning...

Mansilla de Las Mulas to Leon

At 18 km today felt pretty easy and we spent a good deal of the afternoon walking around Leon. The days walk was mostly a few fields and then walking through the city but there were some interesting pieces of ancient engineering and the cathedral in Leon is rather impressive. We also walked to the train station to reserve our seats out of Santiago. So far the eurorail pass has proven less efficient than expected but we should have a very nice trip across Spain and France in a couple weeks. 

Customary sunrise photo. We had an easy morning and slept in so we weren't even out of town by sunrise today...

It looks like they added a modern concrete deck to the original stone bridge to create a two lane road carrying semis. Impressive over engineering of the original bridge that must have carried horses! 

We splurged a little on a fancy hotel tonight. This was looking up from the lobby but the real bonus is having the best shower we've seen on the Camino...

The outside of the cathedral. 

We were able to tour the inside as well today for a nice change. The windows are more impressive from inside and the iPhone doesn't really do them justice. 

One of the northern windows.

We also caught up Eitaro while we toured. We had a couple of meals with him about a week ago but hadn't seen him for a while. Randomly catching up with people we met miles ago is one of the cool things about walking the Camino. One cyclist we talked with said that rarely happens on bike because there are fewer stops and vastly different speeds people ride. I think it would be a nice ride and also aquite different experience to bike it.