Northward Bound Día Uno

Well this actually occurred a few weeks ago or so but I figured it would be worth it to tell a bit of my adventures in El Norte. So to start our adventure off (and because Landes loves making stops in small towns along the way which usually involve some sort of cathedral or castile that is the best example of some sort of old architecture) we headed to a pueblo called Coca. This town happened to hold this great castile that we had fun exploring. Megan (non peliroja), Rebecca and I had a grand ole time running around on the walls yelling things like “THE BRITISH ARE COMING!” (in a British accent, ironically enough) and getting laughed at by guys sitting and eating their bocadillos. Another fantastic part of this side trip was the amazing sun that we had and this fantastic amphitheatre that some of our girls got to reenact a jousting match A Knight's Tale-style. However our good times were suddenly interrupted by a hotbed of moral corruption and general stank. This came in the form of three disgusting boys, affectionately called the gross Coca boys (see picture below, taken before we were acquainted with their real character), who felt the need to follow us around and yell repulsive things and then flash us as we were pulling out (luckily I was not witness to this otherwise my eyes might have been gouged out at this current time and I would not be able to type this). This is when Landes finally realized just how dangerous it is traveling with 11 twenty-year-old girls.










After our dissipated escapades in Coca we made it to León via autobus (one of our new favorite places), or Lion in English. After doing the usual hotel check-in and eating ham and cheese bocadillos we set off exploring the city. First it was the exterior of the Casa de Botines, a castile-like building that now houses the bank Caja España, designed by Gaudí, weird architect extraordinaire. Due to the fact that it is just a bank right now we did not linger long at this particular location and thus were off to see the Catedral de León before too long.






The outside basically looks like any other more basic cathedral that we have seen, but everything changes when you go inside. There are about 125 stained-glass windows dating from the 13th century. They are so heavy that the cathedral’s walls are strained and need support. The nickname for this place is the House of Light and I can see why. As soon as you go in you are overwhelmed by the amount of light and amazing colors there are here in comparison to other cathedrals (there still is not enough to actually warm the dang place up, but at least you can see your hand in front of your face here). Something that I never realized before was that it is incredibly rare to encounter a depiction of Mary pregnant, but we sure saw one here! So after all this admiration we headed off to the Basilica de San Isidoro.






This place was dedicated to San Isidoro de Sevilla (don’t ask me who the heck this was because they have so many dang saints here I lose track) in 1063. The actual church wasn’t too exciting (except for the unlocked door that we snuck into and saw that it was just someone’s office so we high tailed it out of there) but there were a bunch of people worshipping there. The real sight was the Panteón de los Reyes attached to the church. This has 23 tombs of Leonese kings and was one of the first Romanesque buildings in Castile and León. It was embellished by Ferdinand I’s artists and on the ceilings are colorful frescoed murals from the 12th century. Don’t go thinking that this is all Michelangelo-Sistine Chapel-style, but it was still beautiful nonetheless (pictures are from the internet so they’re not that great, but we weren’t allowed to take any there). Then we actually got to go upstairs to see the treasury and library. Apparently this is pretty unique and has some rare finds in it (not that I really realized it at the time, but hey that’s what travel books are for when you’re writing in your journal, right?), such as: 10th century Scandinavian ivory, an 11th century chalice, 10th-12th century cloths from Asia, the Book of Job from 951, a Visigothic Bible and a Bible from 1162.








After getting our historical fill it was free time. This was time that we spent walking along the river, playing on kids’ toys, meeting an old guy that I’m still trying to decide if he was being creepy or not, goofing around in front of some fancy hotel and going to a modern art museum. This last location was specifically MUSAC (don’t want to write out what it stands for; just know that it’s modern. And now I have written more than I would have if I had just written out the dang name.), and I must say that we were probably more fascinated with the exterior of the building, with its technicolor tiles, than the exhibits inside. They were pretty strange and it was hard to distinguish what was art and what was construction, but we did enjoy making shadows in one of the pieces.






So we hurried through the museum so that we could get us some food! Sadly we ended up at Domino’s and had quite a fun time trying to understand just what they meant when they said that every day is buy one get one free, but we eventually got it and the pizza was heaven in cheesy, meaty form. Then it was time to head to the hotel for late-night girl talk and sleep in preparation for the next day full of religious locations (these Catholics sure know how to fill a country with cathedrals, let me tell you).