Our Laundromat Experience

Our taxi to Leon went smoothly and we actually had a third person to drop off on the way. The fields of wild poppies was very pretty and the drive covered a range of small villages to the big city of Leon. The hotel is very big and very nice. We are here for 3 nights so plenty of time to get ready for the next 15 days of walking. Once we got into our room we decided to venture to the local laundromat which was 2 blocks away. The 4 machines were all empty so we decided to go back and get all our dirty laundry and just get it done. We filled my rolling suitcase with most of our clothes and got back to the laundromat. We filled two washers and then sat down to wait for them to move to the dryer. Right after we arrived two Americans also walking the Camino came in and filled a washer with their clothes. We talked about all our experiences and compares notes on what we had learned along the way. It was fun to hear the same experiences between us. The dryer went pretty quickly and we folded it all and rolled back to our hotel. It was so exciting to finally have clothes that didn’t stink. We then got our walking bag together and headed out to see the Cathedral of Leon and also find some shoe laces. We found a nice restaurant on a plaza for lunch and burned some time waiting for the Cathedral and the stores to open back up after siesta. Everything pretty much shuts down from 2-5 in the afternoon - except the bars stay open. The Cathedral was spectacular. Built in the 1200’s and then rebuilt several times after that. At one point in the 1800s it almost collapsed but they saved it with some crazy engineering. You can stand outside and marvel at all the different ages of the different parts of the structure. We did find new shoelaces for Dianne’s shoes and we got them for free out of their ‘extras’ box. After that we went back to the cafe and sampled some more wine and a few local drinks. It was a very nice day.