Missing Toni, awaiting Sam, back to Leon

I have walked days of 29, 27 and 30 kilometers, taking me past the meseta, so I have little doubt now that I will complete my Camino. In another day I can remove the butterfly closures.  I will be glad not to have to explain to people how I fell on my face. My foot still hurts, but evidently less than others’. At night the albergue looks like a hospital ward, peregrinos barely ambulatory, icing feet and ankles, wrapping knees, tending to blisters. But at 5:30 the next morning these same cripples set out to walk another 30 kilometers.

Since Burgos, Leon, and, last night, Astorga, I am increasingly travelling parts of the Camino that Toni and I visited in 2013. I miss Toni every day, but most vividly when I revisit those sights we enjoyed together.

Leon is famed for its 13th century cathedral, with delicate French stonework and filled with light through stained glass.  But for me the highlight is the 11th century San Isidoro. We think of Romanesque churches, like Greek statuary, as abstract, bare stone. Both were originally painted in bright colors.  Almost nowhere has as much of the paint survived as it has here, the Sistine chapel of the Romanesque.

Antoni Gaudi, famed for his modernist work in Barcelona, began his career in Leon and Astorga.  Toni was particularly delighted with his Palacio Episcopal in Astorga. Not yet his mature work, the Palacio is nonetheless a delightful fantasy on medieval themes, the same spirit that takes free flight in the Sagrada Familia. Note the whimsical entrance in the shape of a bishop’s mitre.

Toni also delighted in the liveliness of the Mexican Zocalo, the Spanish Plaza Mayor, dining al fresco, tables full of chatter and conviviality. Tonight I will dine alone in Astorga’s Plaza de Espana.

However, our daughter, Sam, is flying to Spain to join me for the last part of the Camino!

This has been long planned, but I have lost track of time and been confused about the date, so now I will backtrack, by bus, to Leon to await her arrival.