The Hand on the Saddle of the Mules

So, I was saying, the Albergueria Hostel in Mansilla was just lovely.

The room was a dark pink stucco. The bed was an iron 4-poster bed with a bit of delicate lacy canopy. The windows had lace curtains and wood shutters.

The walls had old fashioned medieval style paintings.


They were in a style like Tarot cards. There was an old dark wooden trunk at the foot of the bed. Very romantic.


The dining room was an open-air courtyard, roofed with grapevines with grapes. Flowers were blooming all around pink stucco walls.

Oh, I forgot to say, because the day before was hot, we started from Berciano very early, before sunrise. We walked to Burgo Ranero and stopped for a rest and a drink. I met a young guy there who was carrying what looked like a tiny guitar in a cloth case. It was a Ukelele. He said he missed playing music when he was trekking and he could carry the Ukelele. He said it is tuned completely differently than a guitar. The string closest to you is not the lowest tuning.

Anyway, because of our early start, we reached Mansilla before 2:00.

The Albergueria had a "library". Although the internet did not work, there were some nice books. I am constantly looking for books to identify the different flowers and birds I´ve been seeing.

I found a series of coffee-table books about different natural areas in Spain. One of the books was about the Picos de Europa.

We visited the Picos de Europa during our honeymoon in the 1980s.

We were on a quest for Anselmo´s ancient family home, LOL. We found 7 towns calle "La Lastra" on the map, all in one small area. We drove up there and that´s when we discovered the Picos de Europa. They are a mountain range which are very steep mountains, actually they are straight up and down. They are a "Karst" formation, not sure what that is, it is a geological term for very straight mountains.

So while I was looking through the book I hatched the idea to drive up to the Picos for two days just for old times sake.

Anselmo is looking at car rental rates to see if we can do that and then resume walking after Leon.

Okay, time to go, off to see the Leon Cathedral and the Saint Isidoro Romanesque church.