Mansilla de las Mulas to Leon

Total Distance Today = 12.4 miles

Total ascent = 328 feet

Cumulative distance = 294 miles

Just one word for today's hike -UGLY

We taxied back to Mansilla de Mulas, so we have a clean conscience about walking the whole Camino De Santiago. 

After quickly retracing our route through the old town, we came out onto a gravel walkway by the busy N-601. 

Most of the scenery was scub brush and and the backside of commercial buildings. We didn't even get to cross the historic bridges today. The N-601 was widened to take up the whole bridge. 

Puente Villarente. This is a pretty nice footbridge for the pilgrims. They had a nice sign too. Take a look at the do's and don'ts at the bottom. 

Hadn't thought about it at the time, but I'm going to try the last one next time :)

The park didn't last long.  We came back up to walk right beside the road

This is Spain's version of a single wide mobile home. About half the size of the US version.  

We had lunch in a little village just off the highway and rested for a short time. I was especially tired and looking forward to a nap today. 

We headed off steeling ourselves for the walk into Leon proper, a walk we had read was among the least interesting on the entire Camino. That's when "the way of the Camino" kicked in again. We must go down before we go up.

It wasn't much, but since being on the plain of Spain, we've been spoiled with nice level walks. Besides, it was hot today.

Leon finally came into sight as we crossed over N-601pedestrian bridge. 

Once into the commercial buildings, we picked up new way markers. 

This is the only one I saw that wasn't smashed. 

We made a short detour to look at the ancient bridge into Leon, inaccessible for pedestrians because it is very narrow. 

But once again, car traffic took the whole bridge, so we crossed at a different place. 

We continued on to our hotel, dumped the backpacks in our room and headed across the street to El Corte Ingles, a very large department store that has everything - and I mean everything - new front doors to crystal; groceries to swimsuits. We bought some cold drinks and water for tomorrow and went back to rest while a thunderstorm rolled in.