FEVE fever : 6
In which we are translated from Asturian to Castilian
Lou says: A pleasant breakfast in the Hernan Cortes hotel before we shoulder our bags and decamp for Gijon’s nasty new station once more. At least it’s not actually raining, though it soon will be. Today we are going to leave the Asturias definitively and head deep inland to Leon in search of the legendary once-a-day Leon-Bilbao FEVE line. We have tickets on the RENFE service to Alacant, on which one carriage is considered to be a “regionale” (i.e. cheap) service for poor folks like us, but only on Sundays. Which it is, plus we have our Golden Cards as aforesaid, so we get to ride at the front of the train for very cheap, hoorah. We head for approximately the same valley as we did on yesterday’s trip to Oviedo, but along entirely different tracks, thus affording a view of the opposite side of the gas-coke-processing complex outside Oviedo. Our train continues beyond there towards the coal mining town of La Robla, which involves going over some serious mountain ranges and (today at least) into the clouds. For yes, it is now raining again and visibility is pretty much the same whether we are inside or outside the numerous twisty little tunnels the train clatters through as it goes up the valley out of Asturias and then down on the other side into Castille y Leon. Guy remains convinced that we will at some point enter a new more direct tunnel, scheduled to replace the numerous twisty little tunnels, but it is clearly still scheduled for manana. Before starting the descent and just above the cloudline the scenery mutates into jagged rock formations, with snow lying on the ground, and very little by way of vegetation or villages. But soon, round about Gordo country, we are speeding through a valley that looks (by contrast) more like a lush flood plain with big meadows full of contented cows once more. And the sun is coming out again!
Leon RENFE station turns out to be another nasty new one, about fifty metres away from the perfectly good but now defunct old one. I have been here before (last summer with Lilette and a huge suitcase) so I know the way into town, though not much more since all we did on that occasion was have lunch. We cross the river and walk about 15 minutes into the old town, where we are greeted by a large roman pillar topped by a stork’s nest complete with storks.
There are (according to Guy’s Guidebook) three essential architectural treasures in this city: the Cathedral, the College of St Isidore, and St Mark’s church, representing the Gothic, the Classical, and the Renaissance periods respectively. Our hotel is conveniently located in the Roman part i.e. inside the former monastery attached to the Church of St Isidore, patron saint of the Internet as any fule kno. It boasts the usual sort of stone corridors and cloisters, monastic cells complete with crosses on the wall, numerous art works, nice comfy chairs at regular intervals, and really bad wifi. But our cells look reasonably comfortable and there is real linen on the beds.
However, we urgently need lunch and sally forth in search of same. It is Sunday and the town is full of similarly motivated families on their way back from mass, so it takes a while to find somewhere with space to accomodate us. The beef goulasch and potatoes were definitely worth the wait though.
Replete, we take a brief digestive stroll in order to locate the FEVE station (thank you Google maps) which is shut, and the market, ditto, before retiring to our cells for a well earned siesta.
When I wake, I spend an hour or so getting annoyed by the inadequacies of the hotel wifi (which dear reader is why yesterday’s blog appeared 24 hours late) and we then set off on a quixotic search for something really light for supper. And a drink, There is no problem finding drink: the bars are all doing very nicely thank you, and the clientele is agreeably mixed in age, but the one we settle on offers as free munchies only crisps, olives, or something called garlic soup. So we order raciones again (Guy has a plate of cheesy fried croquettes, and I have a mass of fried sweetbreads) which is more than we can eat, even with the accompaniment of a rather nice fresh white wine. But on the way back to the cloister, we find a tiny bar which proffers grilled mushrooms to accompany the glass of brandy I had proposed as night cap. And we begin to feel that maybe we can cope with spanish life after all. And so to bed.
https://medium.com/@louBurnard/feve-fever-7-b781b04e0f07#.gbbybgvoq
