Feelings of the Day: When traveling without your special someone you miss their presence. Whether it is seeing, experiencing, or eating something you want them physically beside you. Today had me wishing my wife was beside me. Just a week and a half left.
Full Day’s Events: I wanted to let my Hostel manager know, through a fully crafted translation, that I would be leaving with friends for four nights and would return. Unfortunately, she was not downstairs when I came downstairs, for my breakfast of starch, a little later than normal at 8am. After reading, writing, and tidying after a final pack, I went downstairs on my way to RJGM’s place. She was there! She read my translation, gave me the thumbs up, and wished me a “Buen viaje” (good journey).
A short 15-minute walk later, I arrived and assisted the packing before loading the car with ourselves and heading off. A short hour later we arrived at a familiar sight…Castle Gormaz! The day today was a little brighter than the last time I was here, but still the air still contained the moody clouds with less colder wind. This was G&M’s first European castle and they were quite impressed by its size and history.
We spent an hour admiring the views and taking pictures to remember the day. I was very happy to be here again because it does provide the historical, natural, and meditative ambiance for me. A special place.
The terrain we passed were dotted with ruins of castles and solitary towers, tiny towns, and fields of grass with patches of blazing yellow canola. It’s pleasant country to drive through that continually tempts you to stop, just for a little while, and explore a new thing.
However we had a more important mission…sustenance. R&J provided it with a familiar restaurant to them, La Casona de la Vid in the village of La Vid y Barrios. I am very glad they took us here because the ambiance, setting, and food was fantastic. I ordered two pulled pork bao and the flavours with the soft Asian bun was perfect for lunch.
For the majority of the just under two hours to Leon I was quite sleepy and failed to stay awake. Once we got there, the navigation app was flawless in getting to our parking garage, thanks to the wide modern streets and helpful assistance from signage.
Leon, originally a Roman encampment in 24 BCE, became a permanent settlement in 79 CE. Some of its population declined after the Umayyad conquest, but after becoming the capital of the kingdom of Leon (Lion), a Christian kingdom, and established the first parliament of Europe in 1188. On this trip we would be spending two nights here, with myself in separate accommodations.
After checking in, and dealing with slight heights issues of the open area in the middle of the building, we met back up and I enjoyed the world class view from their patio.
Magnificent views of the Eastern part of Leon were admired, including the famous cathedral and Gaudi’s Casa Botines. The orderly centre of town, where the Roman encampment was, has NWSE orientated streets. Once beyond that the streets are more fluid and go where they felt they needed to go. It reminds me of Florence, which was built with a similar beginning as a Roman camp.
J had a particular destination in mind for supper, but once that turned out to be closed for vacation another one was found: Parilla Louzao, or the Louzao Grill.
For the meal, everything people ordered was heralded as awesome. The reason for the few photographs of the delivered platters was because we were all hungry and the tastes made us want to eat more. The olives were marinated in a pimento broth.
The wine was a grape R&J had never heard of and we got a second bottle before the meal was halfway finished.
The two vegetable platters were filled with perfectly cooked goodness. J’s Louzao salad had a wonderful vinaigrette and some of the dried thinly sliced and cured Cecina beef (rivals the boar acorn fed ham), which was also a full order platter we had ordered as a main.
The dark clump in the last photo was black pudding, without a casing, that had cumin and something, which R ordered and couldn’t finish as he also ordered a small dish of smoked sardines that he said were the best he ever had.
J also ordered a plate of chips, and shared it with the table, which were soft and fluffy on the inside and lightly crispy on the outside that reminded her of the chips her and R had in Southern France. Everyone used the chips to mop up the juices of whatever they ate. R offered some black pudding, after describing what it was, to G&M, and after G hesitantly tried some, he was begging M to try some too. They both finished off the last of it. If we are ever in the area again, I’m treating Natalie to this place. 5.1 km and 23 flights walked.
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