Placa Obispo

The palace with its 3 fan-shaped entrance ways is famously noted to be inappropriately suggestive of a gothic style fairytale castle!  It has thus become Museum of the Ways since 1963, and an art gallery to some extent too I note. For at one of the figurines I was reading the accompanying plaque written in Spanish. I was indignant that they claimed it to be made of wood!  I could see the chips revealing white plaster! Unless indeed .... they'd done a particularly professional job in actual wood  creating chips as well to give it an authentic sense of age, and finely painted those chips white??
I was trying to explain my anguish to Fredy (whose English comprehension requires methodical pace, with due periodical repitition) .... when I lightly tapped the item to demonstrate my dilemma.
He smacked my hand and with the air of a true professor said in clear English "Don't Touch! "
Right he was indeed.  Being swallowed in my feeling of injustice I'd forgotten that.
Then Fredy asked me to keep trying to explain to him what I was going on about - when my message finally reached him he peered closely at the plaque ... "madera . . . Yes . . . Wood.  . . "  Then completely without thinking he reached his finger out and tapped the figurine!!!
We agreed it wasn't wood.

There are 3 zinc angels in the garden larger than life - that by design were meant to be on the roof. 
I loved the spiralling stairway with round knee high portals into what could become a lift or a large dumb waiter, yet for now remains as an empty well.
There were 4 levels in total,  including the basement where the stone carved tombs of religious hierarchy were on display. Above the cases upon cases of religious items were really beautifully carved wooden detailed vines with some real and some mythical creatures entagled within.  Each set of leaves, seed pods and creatures were different yet connected as one vine subtly evolving from one to the next. You'll see that they were all well lit except for the last one as I'd just been asked in perfect English "No flash please" by an official in mufti.  I couldn't help wondering if she'd like a job in any of the 7 travel agencies I'd been to in Leon this week (checking for the best price) .... none of them could speak English - lucky for my small amount of Espanol!  :-)

Astorga

Astorga is about 40kms from Leon, Fredy and I caught a bus to go there,  mainly to see Placa Obispo - the Bishop's Palace.  In 1887 Joan Baptista Grau, tge bishop of Astorga entrusted his friend and countryman Antoni Gaudi with the construction of the episcopal palace. After 4 years of working on the design the bishop died,  at which point Gaudi abandoned any further work on it. But authorities of the church at the time went ahead with the building anyway.  Just across the road from the palace is a rather grand cathedral as well, Catedral de Santa Maria de Astorga, was started in the 15th century on top of a roman church and not completed until the 18th century.  Both buildings gallantly stand atop the ancient roman fortified walls of the city.
Unfortunately for me I'd quite misjudged the severity of the icy wind that morning (by choosing my sandals over my sand shoes) and cussed the knife edge of the chill - thus expanding Fredy's knowledge of the common English language.
I didn't take many photos of the cathedral . . . So to help you not be confused as to which building is which ... I'll put them here now and continue with the rest of Astorga here after.
Again ... the detail of decoration and the enormity of the buildings ... astound me. Especially in an era when life is not easy, the tools are basic and machinery - nil. They seemed by this to convey that "time" is simly not a matter to be taken into account by any means.