As soon as we walked through the doors of the León Cathedral, my visual senses were on overload. Apparently León Cathedral houses one of the largest collections of medieval stained glass in the world. Everywhere you look, you see the brilliant colors of the stained glass windows. The great majority of them date from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century: a rarity among medieval gothic churches.

Our tour director, Manuel, told us there were a total of seven pipe organs in this cathedral! We found two organs across from each other in the main nave, with their en chamade trumpets facing each other.

We did a little research and found out the organ was built in 2013 by the Klais organ company, based in Bonn, Germany. It replaced an older instrument which was no longer capable of playing in the city’s International Organ Festival. There’s a great article about how a German organ came to be built for this cathedral in Spain, “Made in Germany, heard in Spain.” We peeked under the cover of the organ console, and saw that it had five manuals.

Here’s a short video sample I found on YouTube by Samuel Rubio, organist of the cathedral, in 2018.

We went outside to the cloisters where we found many statues which had originally been located on the outside of the cathedral, some of which had very interesting expressions.

In the gift shop, we met a pilgrim who is actually walking the entire Camino de Santiago. These individuals get their “passport” stamped along the way, to verify that they have done the walk.

We then visited the romanesque Basilica de San Isidoro, which dates back to the 11th century, and supposedly houses “the” Holy Grail. The roots of this church date back to the early 10th century when a monastery for St. John the Baptist was erected on the grounds.

Not far from the Basilica de San Isidro is the monument to the three daughters of King Leon where we thought would be a great place for another Three Sisters photo. UPDATE: upon research through Google, this sculpture was not three daughters but two daughters and their mother Doña Sancha in the 17th c. The sculpture was created in 2001.

The Casa Botines is a building here in León which was designed by Antoni Gaudi. It currently houses a museum, and outside, there is a statue of the artist. You can see we had fun with it!

I’m afraid I’ve taken lots of food pictures along the way, but so far have neglected to share them. Our tour director, Manuel, took us to a tapas bar where if you order a drink, they will give you one free tapas. I’m including here also pictures from yesterday’s tapas lunch. Delicious, and inexpensive!

And look what Manuel shared with us on the bus! Special cookies made by the nuns, nicknamed “nuns boobies!”