Léon - Sunday, July 8, 2007

Pilgrims

About an hour east of Astorga, at the confluence of the Bernesga and Torío rivers, lies Léon. Most of the terrain is softly rolling farmland, good walking territory. And, in fact, we probably saw between fifty to one hundred people walking the path to Compostela heading from Léon to Astorga as we drove in the opposite direction. We had seen a number of pilgrims while in Astorga, many of them walked with a long stick and large backpacks.

We arrived in León and easily found our way to the center and a good free parking space. We walked up the main thoroughfare toward the cathedral, found the tourist office, got information about local campsites and went wandering to the area that had once been the Judería.

Politics

Once again, the Judería is in the oldest area of town, the streets are crooked and narrow, the prefect place for picturesque coffee shops and restaurants. We saw some of the usual “Anarchist vs. Fascist” graffiti as well as some more unusual graffiti that we did not know how to interpret.

Back at the main square in front of the cathedral learned about a free concert later that evening. A nearby coffee shop around the back of the cathedral had free wireless (with a drink). We spent most of the remainder of the afternoon there, catching up on correspondence as well as a little Web site updating.

Performances

The concert, part of the 20th festival of Spanish Music was a performance by the Ensemble de Saxofones del Conservatorio Superior de Oiedo. They had a rather broad definition of “Spanish” music. The composers included:

• Adolfo Ventas (1919)
• Enrique Granado (1867-1917)
• Ginés Abellán (1942)
• Pedro Iturralde (1929)
• Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992)!
• Adolfo Ventas
• Juaquín Turina (1882-1949)

The big, full, saxophone sound inside the little courtyard of the

The tourist office had directed us to the town’s camp site, which turned out to be a few spots for caravans in a parking lot overlooking the Bernesga river, plus a place for dumping and refilling with fresh water. Two friendly Spanish couples camped next to us and explained to us how to manage.

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