El Camino de Santiago - 2017
Day 7: Atapuerca to Burgos
Michelle wrote:
13 Sept. Wednesday
We left Atapuerca around 8:00 am and began our climb of about 100m on a very rocky road. It wasn’t too bad and we got our first look at Burgos in the distance from the top of the hill. It was a nice walk to Cardenuela Riopico where we stopped for a snack. Then on to Orbaneja, which was a nice village with some nice homes and gardens. We even saw a black pig wandering around a yard! There is a definite difference in the villages when you get close to a big city. More money = nicer homes.
We continued walking and passed the Burgos Airport, which is not very big or very busy, at least at 11:00 am. Then we took a route that took us through a forest area near the river Arlanzon. The water was clear and cold. Curtis waded across the river and I soaked my feet for a few minutes. It was refreshing! The way marks were a little difficult to find as we walked through the woods. The guidebook warned us of this and said that as long as we kept the river on our left we would be just fine. It was correct! The river walk became nicer as we got in to Burgos. There were a lot of people walking and biking on the trail. We even saw several groups/classes of school children walking somewhere with their teachers. It was shaded and flat and long, but very nice. My feet were sore and I was anxious to stop for the day, but Curtis reminded me that we were lucky to be in the shade on a nice pavement. Yes indeed!
We crossed the river and entered the busy streets of Burgos. We walked across the city and found our hotel, Meson del Cid, right next to the Catedral de Santa Maria (13th Century). The hotel is famous because some movies have been made there. It is nice and comfortable, but the best part about it is the location: next to the cathedral and in the “old town”, with plazas, quaint streets, shops and close to the river esplanade.
We took a little siesta, showered and went exploring. We found a laundromat on the other side of the river. The hotel offered to do our 1 load of laundry for 40 euros, but we did it ourselves at the laundromat for 6 euros. We also got massages and a nearby clinic for 19 euros each - the special pilgrim price for a 25 minute massage! That was nice!
We finally stopped for a light dinner at a cafe on the plaza where we sat outside and looked up at the beautiful cathedral. As it got dark, some lights began to light up the cathedral. It was nice very pretty and, of course, we were required to take even more pictures! I liked Burgos more than I thought I would. It is more impressive and clean than some of the other cities I’ve been in - at least the area around the cathedral.
13 Sept. Wednesday
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| Leaving Albergue El Peregrino, in Atapuerca after a good nights rest. |
We continued walking and passed the Burgos Airport, which is not very big or very busy, at least at 11:00 am. Then we took a route that took us through a forest area near the river Arlanzon. The water was clear and cold. Curtis waded across the river and I soaked my feet for a few minutes. It was refreshing! The way marks were a little difficult to find as we walked through the woods. The guidebook warned us of this and said that as long as we kept the river on our left we would be just fine. It was correct! The river walk became nicer as we got in to Burgos. There were a lot of people walking and biking on the trail. We even saw several groups/classes of school children walking somewhere with their teachers. It was shaded and flat and long, but very nice. My feet were sore and I was anxious to stop for the day, but Curtis reminded me that we were lucky to be in the shade on a nice pavement. Yes indeed!
We crossed the river and entered the busy streets of Burgos. We walked across the city and found our hotel, Meson del Cid, right next to the Catedral de Santa Maria (13th Century). The hotel is famous because some movies have been made there. It is nice and comfortable, but the best part about it is the location: next to the cathedral and in the “old town”, with plazas, quaint streets, shops and close to the river esplanade.
We took a little siesta, showered and went exploring. We found a laundromat on the other side of the river. The hotel offered to do our 1 load of laundry for 40 euros, but we did it ourselves at the laundromat for 6 euros. We also got massages and a nearby clinic for 19 euros each - the special pilgrim price for a 25 minute massage! That was nice!
We finally stopped for a light dinner at a cafe on the plaza where we sat outside and looked up at the beautiful cathedral. As it got dark, some lights began to light up the cathedral. It was nice very pretty and, of course, we were required to take even more pictures! I liked Burgos more than I thought I would. It is more impressive and clean than some of the other cities I’ve been in - at least the area around the cathedral.
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| View to the north east from the Sierra Atapuerca |
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| The approach to Cruz de Matagrande at the top of Sierra de Atapuerca |
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| At the top of the mountain, the sunrise makes for tall pilgrim shadows. |
From Curtis: The climb out of Atapuerca was more gradual and shorter than the previous morning coming out of Villafranca Montes de Oca. The scrub oak trees predominated on this section of the trail, but you could not look up very often because the trail was pretty rocky and rough. It was rough because of erosion; it was eroded because so many of us pilgrims walked on it and nobody maintains it. There are sections of the Appalachian Trail that get a lot of traffic, and the erosion makes for hard walking - but the trail gets maintained regularly and the erosion is minimized. On the Camino forums there are long discussions on the pros and cons of trail maintenance. Of course nobody wants to pay for it, and the purists believe nature should take its course, but on the other side of the argument, the historical purpose of the Camino is to facilitate people walking to Santiago and the road has been going through cycles of decay and improvement for 100's of years.
The view of Burgos from the top of the mountain had us wondering where the Camino would take us into town. It turns out that we walked relatively close to the plume of steam near the left of the image below. The low resolution of a cell phone camera does not do the scene justice.
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| View of Burgos from the west flank of Sierra Atapuerca. Click on the picture to see it full screen. |
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| On the outskirts of town this sign caught my attention. |
For the pilgrim, the introduction to Burgos is through a few blocks of the industrial east side of town. Fortunately, it's relatively well maintained, and the discomfort of walking past factories is well offset by the sweet pleasure of walking through the wooded river bottoms most of the way through town.
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| Crossing the Rio Arlanzon like the original pilgrims did: barefoot. Click HERE to see this spot in Google Maps |
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| Refreshing Rio Arlanzon |
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| It was fun to watch the duck use this water slide. Next time I'll have a video to share. |
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| This is the first week of school. It seems like the entire school is walking, each class following there teacher. Yes, school kids are the same in Spain as where I grew up. |
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| LOVE this. Walking through Burgos was the BEST. |
Several Facebook friends commented on Burgos too:
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| Reflection of the Cathedral from the hotel lobby window. |
The official Camino de Santiago goes through the town, not along the river. By this, I am confessing that my perfectionist side was overwhelmed by my realist side for much of this walk into town. Nevertheless, you should know that there was some internal conflict. This dissension from following yellow arrows and the conchas (shell signs) made me a little nervous. I think at this point I still did not have the app that showed the trail on Google Maps. With the app I would have seen that the river walk takes you within a couple 100 yards of the Cathedral and our hotel. Eventually, the concern about passing our hotel overwhelmed the pleasantness of the river walk and we crossed a bridge into town and found the yellow arrows indicating the Camino. At this point we met a girl from Canada who was looking for a specific albergue. She didn't speak much Spanish, so I offered to help. We stopped a friendly looking man, and it turns out he was a gold mine of information. He told us where to find her albergue, and also some of the better albergues in town. We told him we were staying at Hotel Meson El Cid. "Ah" he said, "A 3-star hotel with 4-star prices". (We found that to be accurate. It's main advantage is being on the same plaza as the cathedral.)
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| Michelle near the entrance to the Cathedral |
The first thing every Pilgrim does at the end of the day is to take a shower and do the laundry. The shower in the hotel was luxurious. But the laundry cost 40 euros. We could have replaced the clothes that needed to be washed for that cost.
While looking for a store that would sell a hat that would replace Michelle's (which doesn't work) we came across the bus station. This is important because if something should come up that would keep us from hiking the Camino, we would need to come here (or the train station).
Walking through the bus station we came across the laundromat. This was a big relief.
Maybe I'm biased because in the laundromat we found an advertisement for a massage. Remember the sign for Clinica Vitalfisio that caught my attention coming into town? They were right around the corner!
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| 4 Euros for a normal load (6 Euros for really dirty clothes): sweet deal. It includes soap and fabric softener. |
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| The huge dryer did a capital job. Hands down: this is the best laundry on the Camino. |
We spent 6 euros to wash and dry our clothes and 19 Euros each for a 25 min. massage by a physical therapist with a 4 year degree trained to work out specific problems for trekkers like us.
Ya gotta love Burgos.
Dinner was in the plaza south of the cathedral.
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| My dinner was spaghetti 'Bolognesa' and Michelle had the ensalada mixta |
Looking up from dinner, the lights startet coming on at the cathedral.
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| Dining adjacent the Catedral de Burgos |
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