Tuesday 9 October 2012

The home stretch - Porto to Leon

After a lovely morning doing the cultural stuff in Porto while surrounded by bums we decided to skip town and hit the road! We figured our best rote was inland towards Leon in Spain!

Sheila our trusty sat nav estimated a time of 4.30pm arrival in Leon approx 4.45 mins.. Grand we left Porto and headed for the hills, quite literally we climbed and climbed and climbed!

When we reached the top all you could see for miles was Christmas trees! It was quite surreal, there we were with air con on in shorts and T-shirts and tit deep in Christmas trees!

Trish and I had a great time for about ten minutes singing Christmas songs but when after two and a half hours later we were still immersed in the land of St Nick it wasn't quite as fun. It was boring, you could see nothing only varying sizes of Christmas trees! When we eventually got out of crimbo land the place was barren!

There was so little to see I thought we were in a safari somewhere! I was convinced we were going to see an aul lion or giraffe strolling along the barren land! It was miles and miles of sandy soil with a random tree in the middle of it! Not a house, not a petrol station, nothing, nada! Barren!

When we saw a sign for Leon saying 20k but Sheila told us we still had an hour and a half drive we broke into a debate about how reliable Sheila actually was.

It turns out that Sheila was in fact right, we had forgotten about the hours time difference so we were only delighted to arrive in Leon 20 mins later!

We checked into a great hotel in the centre of Leon! Very easy... Just pulled up and booked a room! Great...we showered got changed and hit the old town!

Leon is beautiful, real old Spain. The people are friendly the buildings are beautiful and the beer is ridiculously cheep... €1 a pint and they give you a pincho with every drink! Food so delicious we didn't even bother with dinner! We had sardines in a tomato sauces and various meats and wings and roasted peppers..delicious!

Afterwards I found out that pincho's came about in old Spain where their king decided that people were getting too drunk in the taverns and made it law that taverns provided their patrons with food to stop the drunkenness! Brilliant if you ask me, they should do it everywhere!

Caution though....if in Leon, there is a fabulous square up near the cathedral where you can sit and have a glass of wine and some food! The waiter may bring you nuts! If you are brave enough to accept them the local pigeon gang will most likely attack you!

I fell victim to a pack of rabid pigeons! Much to the delight of several locals I became hysterical when at least 20 birds came to land on top of me and fight amongst themselves over the nuts! They practically used me as a cage as they fought to the death over the bowl of nuts! They were oblivious to my flapping and screaming... Video will be posted to my page if enough interest!!

After our fill of drink and food we sauntered back to the hotel through the lovely streets of Leon!

It's amazing how no matter where you go, what you see or what you do, you can spot the local drug users... They all look the same, they all have that same stare, at your hand bag!

After a short stalk on our way back and a detour into a local biker bar to avoid being mugged ( being a little dramatic ) we eventually made it into the hotel and collapsed with full stomachs into bed to plan the trip home!

I highly recommend Leon, defo worth a visit a definite high point of the trip!

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