For sit down dining, besides the elegant dining room of the Parador (dimmed lighting and refined service by white jacketed waiters at this Parador instead of bright lights and the usual waitress staff in regional costume at most others), I can recommend the Bodega Regia in the Old Quarter across from the Casa Botines.

I discovered this over lunch at Bodega Regia, a 14th-century townhouse where Marcos Vidal sat me down to a properly Leonese menu beginning with cecina and cured pig’s tongue, smoky chorizo and creamy-centred ham croquetas “in the style of Ana”, the chef and Vidal’s wife (the restaurant has been in the family for more than 60 years). That was followed by a comforting dish of stewed chickpeas, then slow-cooked beef cheeks so tender they fell apart under the fork, and a dense sweet cake made with chestnuts from the forests of El Bierzo. From the Bodega I emerged into the cold afternoon for a stroll along Calle Ancha, nearly deserted at siesta time, and another look at the great cathedral, whose cream-white spires, scrubbed free of a thousand years of grime, soared and glittered in the clear air.