Leon, Burgos and Pamplona

The next leg of my bus trip took me to Leon, a busy city of about 200,000 in north central Spain.  Another camino good deed - I found a small hotel but was it was too expensive so the woman at the desk me sent to one nearby that was half the price. Leon is home to one of the most beautiful Gothic cathedrals in Spain and it has recently been cleaned.

The travel literature says that the three great Gothic cathedrals in Spain are in Leon, Burgos and Sevilla.  Burgos was my next stop.  

The cathedral in Burgos is a more flamboyant style than Leon.  Both of these churches were built fairly quickly and so have a unity of style that is missing in other cathedrals.  What was quickly?  Thirty to forty years.  The great Spanish warrior El Cid is buried in this church.

One does not think about churches in Pamplona but rather bulls and Hemingway and the best tapas in Spain.  

This sculpture is located in the Plazas de Toros and the bullring is only two blocks away.  

Another of the great public spaces in Spain: Plaza del Castillo.  Across the way, the brown building is the Cafe Iruna, one of Ernest Hemingway's watering holes.  Every evening this plaza fills with people out for a walk or in search of dinner and refreshment.  The lazy bus riding is over.  Now it's time to walk and then work.