Burgos to Hornillos el Camino - May 22

Date posted: May 22 without pictures internet too slow.

Will post pictures when I get a better connection

Today was another very cold and windy day, with the threat of rain all morning. Fortunately, I like to walk quickly, at least when my body isn't complaining and this keeps me warm. I caught up with Franziska (the Swiss woman I walked with yesterday) and Chea, a woman from Texas, toward the end of the days walk. We are all staying in Alberge El Far in Hornillos el Camino.

Spent about a hour walking out of the Burgos suburbs, a good deal of it through parkland. The way today was pretty uneventful, through fields and across a diversion at a highway overpass construction sight. We passed the villages of Villabilla and then Rabe de las Calzadas, where I stopped for my bocadillo, and then a bit of a climb from 800 m up to the Alto Meseta, at 950 m and then down again to Hornillos, pop. 70. As you can imagine there is not much in this town.

The Meseta is the high agricultural plateau which runs between Burgos to Leon. Pretty boring walking, I am told. It will probably take me until May 29th to walk the Meseta and arrive in Leon at which point I will need to make my way to Zamora for my Hospitalera posting. I may just bus into Leon on that last day to skip the industrial lands and have a bit more time in the City.

Today's distance was 21.7 km adjusted for the climb. I could have kept walking but I wasn't sure if my feet wanted to walk the 10 km further to the next Albergue and my walking companions were definitely not into going further, so I decided to pack it in here. The Albergue is a private one, a converted house with two dorm rooms of 5 bunks each. The bathrooms are nicely done, but poorly designed and 2 are just not sufficient for 20 people. There is one bath/toilet on the main floor and on the second floor a bathroom with a toilet (not enclosed) and 2 showers, which makes it awkward for 2 people if one wants to use the toilet in privacy. Seems the prices are creeping up - this Albergue is 9 EUR and dinner, which is served in the Albergue, is another 9 EUR. We will see what the dinner is like.

The best part of the Albergue is they have a sheltered garden with some lounge chairs. The Spanish sun is hot when you are out of the wind, so we enjoyed an hour of relaxation in the sun with a cervesa (beer) while we waited for the showers to free up.

Tomorrow is another 20 km walk through the Meseta.

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Burgos Rest Day - May 21

It seems like quite a few of my pilgrim cohort took an extra day in Burgos as I have seen familiar faces in my wanderings today. I spent a leisurely few hours this morning in a cafe doing yesterday's blog over coffee con leche and then toured the Cathedral. It was very impressive and took over 2 hours to do the audio guided tour.

 

The Burgos Cathedral is very impressive. The city itself has no real high rises and the city centre is a densely packed area of very narrow streets, so typical Burgos photos show the gothic spirals towering above the buildings as this is exactly how it is when you are walking about.

 

The Cathdral has the distinction of being designated a World Heritage sight on its own right - due to its impressive architecture and size, unlike other Cathedrals which are joined with a city designated as a world heritage sight as well. I will upload some of my Cathedral pictures, but if you want to know more go here to get more info on the Cathedral.

Look at the clock in the upper right

Papamoscas a symbol of Burgos

The "Papamoscas" (flycatcher) flaps open his mouth like a German nutcracker with each hour's chime and the small Martinillo figure to his right hammers on the 2 bells to mark the quarter hour.

 

 

 

The Cathedral is immense and one could easily get lost except for the arrows and the self guiding audio device everyone has hung on their ear, There are 17 separate chapels surrounding the 3 centre naves separated by massive columns which supports the nerves vaulted ceilings. Built in the French gothic style, it is a sight not to miss in Burgos. It was build in 1221 over 22 years and improved over the next 500 years.

Burgos itself is a very pretty city with a lot of open plazas and walkways.

On a more personal note, I have had a wonderful rest in my private hotel room a splurge in these last two days! I have also found some warm leggings to replace the ones left behind in Zubiri in a fit of optimism about the temperatures I could expect during my walk. The overnight low has been 5 degrees Celsius for two days running, with daytime highs of just 12 and nothing higher than 16 in the next week! Not too very bad for walking, but not pleasant enough to sit on the patios with Sangria in the afternoon. Anyway it is going to be mostly sunny and a bit warmer the next week when I am in Zamora.

 

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San Juan de Ortega to Burgos - May 21

There were a couple of alternative routes to Burgos so the road was less crowded with Pilgrims - each having made a choice between the less scenic "industrial suburbs", or the slightly longer route through countryside and parkland. Guess which route I chose?

The area between San Juan and Burgos includes the great limestone Atapuerca Massif. So there was a great rocky climb to the top of the Massif and then our route veered south of the highlands through farmland, then A pretty boring rocky path around the Burgos Airport and finally down to the river for a 6-7 km walk through treed parkland. In all today's walk was over 27 km, altitude adjusted for the climb over the Massif.

Approaching Alto Crucerio at 1080 m

I was walking with two other women today - Sonali, a young 22 year old Canadian woman from Toronto and Franziska, a Swiss woman closer to my age - me being the senior in the crowd. We were joined for a while by a couple of Spanish Ladies with whom Sonali had walked with on a previous day. We had good conversation for a lot of the way and the settled into a comfortable silence for the rest of the walk as we each enjoyed our surroundings, lost in our own thoughts. There is a wonderful bond which develops between Pilgrims who walk together for a time and now I have two new Facebook Friends as a consequence.

The area includes some very famous archeological digs where they have found the oldest human remains in Europe. The excavations, which have been ongoing since 1994 have found pre-Neanderthal remains from a previously unknown subspecies of hominid, Homo antecessor, who may be the common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans (info thanks to my Cultural Handbook of the Camino). A large billboard marked the road leading to the excavation along with a few monoliths placed at the side of the road.

Today started really cold - I finally broke down and pulled out the leather gloves I had brought. The walk to the first village was brisk and although the skies threatened rain, none appeared. I was glad to reach the breakfast stop at the village of Ages. Lo and behold - bacon and eggs was on the menu which I could not pass up. A word of explanation is necessary here. Spaniards eat tostadas (toast) for breakfast - they eat eggs as a main dish for dinner, so it isn't often that you are able to get a regular North America breakfast - let alone eggs and bacon. It was perfectly cooked, but they need to learn that we prefer our bread toasted with this dish.

We arrived at Burgos at around 3:30. I had decided to stay an extra day and do some sightseeing and to give my feet a rest. Franziska and I found rooms in the nice Hotel Norte y Londres. A nice treat to have a private room and bath for 2 nights! Only 46 EUR a night for a decent hotel in the centre of Burgos less than a km from the Cathedral. It is Thurs morning as I write this blog. Will write later today and tell you what I have seen and also I will be able to upload pictures for past days as the internet speed is pretty good here.

The view from my room

 

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