Leon, Nicaragua

March 21-26, 2016

So the town of Leon isn't all that impressive itself.  Its not a cute colonial one.  Theres no big museums. But its a gritty kind of real, and I felt like I saw more of what Nicaragua is really like, than in a tourist-run town like Granada.

The one thing it does have, is the Basílica Catedral de la Asunción de León, the largest cathedral in South America.  As to why a small city like Leon merits such a cathedral, rumor has it that the baroque church was slated to be built in Lima, Peru but some error had it constructed in León by mistake. Other legend says one design draft was submitted for the church, and when it was actually built they just made it bigger without telling anyone. Either way, it is an impressive building.

The inside was equally impressive

Since its a little washed out, its hard to tell that the alcove was painted a wonderful pink

Because I was there during Semana Santa, there was a big party in the park in front of it, complete with kids toys and trampolines.

The smaller churches throughout the town didn't disappoint either.  They were full of lovely architecture and detail.

Iglesia de la Recolección

Close up on the columns which I thought were wonderful.

Iglesia La Merced

Superb detail

I'm not actually sure what building this is, it was on the edge of the main park

This was just on a house on the corner, but I liked it a lot.

You may have noticed the lion statues on either side of the Catedral in the first photo. You may not have. In any case, they're there, and they crack me up because they look like they're yelling at someone.

So I yelled back.

Unfortunately my photographer didn't tell me to move a step to my right so I wasn't yelling into that guy's head, but that's what mind-Photoshop is for.

That cracked me up too. It's the small things, right?

While the actual town of Leon may not have been a tourists dream, there are things to do while in town that are.  Those are coming up next.