ShakeATower
Reliegos to Leon 4 October 2024
We shuttled up from Reliegos so that our mom could go to a massage therapist for her leg that's been bothering her, and we took an extra day to rest. We stayed in a smart hotel meaning that absolutely no one worked there! Everything was controlled by a link on our phones.
We got into Leon at the beginning of a festival. "The festivity commemorates the Christian victory in the Battle of Clavijo and the end of the legendary tribute of "one hundred maidens" that the monarchs from the Astur-Leones Kingdom had to pay every year to the Muslim caliphs.
The women dressed in typical medieval dresses dance to the rhythm marked by the figure of the "Sotadera", a Moorish woman who taught Muslim traditions, as they proceed from the Town Hall square to the cathedral. The town authorities are charged with making an offering to the Virgin and march among the ceremonial macebearers."
We visited the Santa María de Regla de León Cathedral. "Initiated in the 13th century, it is one of the greatest works of the Gothic style, with French influences. Also known as the Pulchra Leonina, which means ‘Beautiful Leonese’, it is located on the Way of Saint James, or Camino de Santiago.
The León Cathedral is mostly known for taking the “dematerialization” of gothic art to the extreme, that is, the reduction of the walls to their minimum expression to be replaced by stained glass, constituting one of the largest collections of medieval stained glass in the world." The work is absolutely stunning.