Camino Day 13, Thursday 5/10/07: Santo Domingo de la Calzada to Burgos

There were buses to Burgos at 9:15 and 11:45 in the morning. since the early bust to najera just got us to a town that hadn't awakened, we decided to take the 11:45 bus.

We had breakfast in a pasteleria and chocolate store because our exorbitant room price did not include the buffet breakfast. I'm afraid we feel that the paradores are not worth the extra cost. We could have bought our own toiletries at the pharmacy for much less :-).
We wandered around town, I checked my email and sent out a letter to everybody. I also responded to Camila's request that we go to Washington DC on June 6-7-8 to help her move in. She is moving a UPack container to move her stuff.

The booths for the festival still weren't open when we left but I have a feeling that they were mainly clothes and purses and other flea market items that we really wouldn't be interested in anyway. The bus was about 15 minutes late. It was run by Linea Jimenez and I swear it was the same driver that took us from Lograono to Najera and from Najera to Santo Domingo. As we drove along you could see the pilgrims on the camino that paralleled the highway. The camino was nice and flat and wide, like the one from Estella to Los Arcos. It always makes me sad to see them waling while we are in the bus. But I would rather travel without the backpack, using the two services Jacotrans (in La Rioja) and Globetrotters (in Burgos). There were packs in the Hotel Espana in Burgos from pilgrims using Globetrotters.

Around Villafranca de Montes de Oca, the road begins climbing into the mountains. It becomes forested with a deciduous tree that has not leafed out yet and then with conifers. There was a short stretch that was covered with a short shrub with mauve flowers. Oh! if honly we had been walking! The Camino guide says the forests were oak and then pine and it is heather covered moorland. The highest point on the Cmaino was 1,050 meters before reaching San Juan de ortega, which is off the highway and so we didn't see it.

The trip to Burgos on the bus only took about an hour and a half. By foot it would have been 3 days: Santo Domingo to Belorado (23.9 KM), Belorado to San Juan de Ortega (24.1 KM), and San Juan de ortega to Burgos (27.3 KM).


In Burgos, the bus station was not located far from our hotel, the Hotel España, which is across from the Teatro Principal. We got a room on the inside looking into a dirty pigeon-filled interiro "patio" but at least it was cool and quiet.


We first visited the Cathedral of Burgos, which is truly huge and magnificent and very beautiful. Primarily the stone carvings on all the columns and ceilings. Evidently it has been cleaned up recently because it looked fresh and new. VERY impressive and not to be missed.
Here's a statue of Santiago the Pilgrim.
And here's another one of Santiago the Moor Killer.
The stained glass in the ceiling was truly spectacular.

For lunch we went to a restaurant near the Cathedral that served a "gastronomic" menu of chorizo and morcilla (a specialty of Burgos), cordero lechal (supposedly suckling lamb but they cook everything here until it falls apart), sopa a la castellana (another bread soup) and queso de burgos for dessert. We also ordered two ensaladas mixtas. I am afraid we have reached our limit with Spanish food and that heavy meat diet. Fernando, however, keeps eating all the bread.
After such a meal, it is time for a siesta, a habit which we have been following religiously. Then, since Fernando always sleeps more than I do, it is time to wash clothes and shower.
Around 6 pm, life in Spanish cities picks up again and we walked quite a lot, exploring the area around the cathedral and our hotel. We found a vegetarian restaurant called Gaia near the Hotel Meson de Cid (El Cid, by the way, was born and buried in Burgos, enterred in the Cathedral although expelled from the city as a young man, hence his wanderings).
We also passed an ice cream shop called El Candilejo where Fernando had his espresso and I an orujo con hierbas (a liqueur). It was run by a man and wife and had Charlie Chaplin all over the walls. We decided to also order churros and torta de queso. Then we walked farther down the Calle San Juan to the bar and taps area but it looked like more drinking than eating was going on.