What is the collective noun for walled cities?

From Avila we headed to Segovia, in many ways a very similar place but with a slightly slicker tourism strategy and a 300 yard Roman aqueduct, standing about 30 metres high and looking like it was knocked up yesterday. The lifting of the huge stones must have required some pretty fancy machinery by first century standards and apparently no mortar was used. Aside from our admiration, this edifice also attracted a barrage of Life of Brian quotes ("what have the fuckin' Romans done for us lately anyway?"; "half a dinari for an old ex-leper sah!"; and on to "I have a vewy gweat fwiend in Wome, called Biggus Dickus"). Mel endured this with only slightly gritted teeth.

Segovia also has a magnificent cathedral and a fairy tale castle perched dramatically on it's north-western corner. The audio tour for this latter structure was a dry affair, noting in great detail the "mudejar-style" architecture in just about every room, particularly above the doorways, while also describing how the old castle burned down in the 19th century and the current one is now covered largely by rooves stolen from nearby churches. What the locals worshipping on a rainy Sunday think of that cannot be printed here. Despite the efforts of the excellent English speaker on the guide, I cannot describe mudejar style architecture beyond saying it's name. The cathedral is superb, I suspect even to cathedral afficianados, dominating the town skyline and sitting close to the main square and numerous tapas bars, allowing for a swift transition between religions.

From Segovia we took a very fast train to Leon, a bigger city but with a medieval centre and, yes, some old city walls. This is one of the stops on the French Road of the Camino de Santiago, the path from France to Santiago de Compostela in north western Spain taken by thousands of pilgrims each year to visit the cathedral where St James the Apostle is thought to be buried. We hoped to walk or cycle some of this route and so the sights of Leon took a back seat to frantic organising and frustrating attempts to negotiate bike rental and luggage transport and accommodation in Spanglish over the frequently faulty pay phones. After several tantrums, incidents of phone vandalism and near-hurlings of our iPad into lakes we got it all sorted and could stroll the streets without worry. We were right to change our pace; the city walls are old and nice and I'm sure the stones could tell stories if they could speak but they can't and how many city walls can a bloke look at? The cathedral was, as always, partly covered by scaffolding and requesting donations for renovation but it was extremely rich in beautiful stained glass and there was much conjecture over whether it was "better" than the Segovia cathedral. You can vote on this at www.youcan'trankthiskindofthingyouknow.com.

Once all the bicycling was organised we could finally stroll around and enjoy Leon's atmosphere. We dined on morcilla and ensalada rusa at an old town bar, and ordered something called manitas de ministro, basically because we didn't know what it was and it was slightly higher priced than most other dishes, suggesting exoticism or at least some specialness. It turned out to be four bony and meaty chunks smothered in a red sauce. Our inital asumption was chicken, but doubt was cast by the tasting in which we found the meat to be surprisingly jelly-like. Mel was finally able to identify them as pigs trotters, and persuaded me with reference to the numerous hams hanging from the roof with the trotter still attached. Another dish that won't require a second try.

The next part of our trip was to be by bike, 300kms to Santiago de Compostela over six days. We had prepared for this task by doing no exercise for about two months and neither of us had ever ridden a bike with luggage panniers on it before. We didn't even have God on our side like the other pilgrims. Lucky we got that tantrum practice in.