El Camino de Santiago - 2017
Day 8: Burgos to Tardajos
Michelle wrote:
14 Sept. Thursday
We woke up at 7:00 am after a nice quiet sleep - the massages helped a lot! We had the luxury of enjoying a shower in the morning - why not? - and hot water if we wanted it! We took a tour of the cathedral and I was overwhelmed with the amount of art and wealth in that cathedral. It was impressive! Words can not describe the amount of work and the intricacy of the carvings all over and throughout the huge building. It was very beautiful and interesting.
We had to skip seeing the castillo because of time. We had to find a post office (Correos) to mail some things we bought. It was a bit of a walk, around the hill the castillo sits on. So tempting to go to the castillo. The area is new and modern and quite pleasant. We mailed the box, stopped at a Farmacia for blister bandaids, grabbed a bite of breakfast/lunch and found our way back to the camino. A nice man told us to “follow the road we were on to the river and turn right”. He was correct! We crossed the river and were back on the river walk that goes all the way through Burgos, east to west. It was very pretty. Eventually the greenway ended and we passed the University of Burgos, which seemed quite nice, and finally out onto the camino dirt track again. We wandered through small fields of what might have been potatoes and alfalfa. No more olive groves or vineyards.
It was a pleasant flat walk to Tardajos, where we stopped for the night (11.5 km). We stayed in a nice albergue, La Fabrica, which used to be a flour mill. The owners have fixed it up nicely. We are in a private room again - it’s hard to give up that luxury. We plan to go back to being humble pilgrims again - tomorrow. It is hard to give up the nice and quiet private rooms though.
We ate a good dinner of steak, french fries, salad and dessert. We shared the table with a couple from North Carolina that are world travelers, literally. They have been to 66 countries and had interesting stories to tell. It was a very windy and cold evening and we stayed snug and warm in our room while writing. Tomorrow we hope to be up by 6:30/7:00 am and out the door 30 minutes later.
14 Sept. Thursday
We woke up at 7:00 am after a nice quiet sleep - the massages helped a lot! We had the luxury of enjoying a shower in the morning - why not? - and hot water if we wanted it! We took a tour of the cathedral and I was overwhelmed with the amount of art and wealth in that cathedral. It was impressive! Words can not describe the amount of work and the intricacy of the carvings all over and throughout the huge building. It was very beautiful and interesting.
We had to skip seeing the castillo because of time. We had to find a post office (Correos) to mail some things we bought. It was a bit of a walk, around the hill the castillo sits on. So tempting to go to the castillo. The area is new and modern and quite pleasant. We mailed the box, stopped at a Farmacia for blister bandaids, grabbed a bite of breakfast/lunch and found our way back to the camino. A nice man told us to “follow the road we were on to the river and turn right”. He was correct! We crossed the river and were back on the river walk that goes all the way through Burgos, east to west. It was very pretty. Eventually the greenway ended and we passed the University of Burgos, which seemed quite nice, and finally out onto the camino dirt track again. We wandered through small fields of what might have been potatoes and alfalfa. No more olive groves or vineyards.
It was a pleasant flat walk to Tardajos, where we stopped for the night (11.5 km). We stayed in a nice albergue, La Fabrica, which used to be a flour mill. The owners have fixed it up nicely. We are in a private room again - it’s hard to give up that luxury. We plan to go back to being humble pilgrims again - tomorrow. It is hard to give up the nice and quiet private rooms though.
We ate a good dinner of steak, french fries, salad and dessert. We shared the table with a couple from North Carolina that are world travelers, literally. They have been to 66 countries and had interesting stories to tell. It was a very windy and cold evening and we stayed snug and warm in our room while writing. Tomorrow we hope to be up by 6:30/7:00 am and out the door 30 minutes later.
Curtis writes:
We took time in the morning to tour the cathedral. The day before, the priority was to shower, do the laundry and find Michelle a hat. (We accomplished 2 out of 3). Knowing that we would probably need to spend more time in Burgos, we had planned on a 11.5km walk this day, to nearby Tardajos.
Here are the pictures of the cathedral. What I liked about this building is that the primary interior color is white. It is well lit. The artwork was not all about gruesome suffering (For that, nothing beats El Prado Museum in Madrid). I've included pictures of the ones I liked the most.
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| Coffin of El Cid He was shorter than me. He's not in there now. His body was exhumed to a more glorious tomb. |
Thanks for scrolling past the pictures from the cathedral. Now back to the trail.
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| Daily pre-hike selfie... at 1:05 pm |
After touring the cathedral, we checked out of the hotel, and we had to find a post office to mail stuff that was consequential to going through the shop at the end of the tour. You know what I mean? Michelle found Correos on her iphone, so she led the way. Our experiences with the people who work at Correos have all been good. Well, ok... last year there was a miscommunication and our package was sent to Santiago in the province of A Coruña, when we actually intended it to go to the city of A Coruña. But, that's an undersandable mistake since we were obviously pilgrims and pilgrims go to Santiago. Luckily, our friend Fuco was able to resolve that problem. So, this time when we sent the package to Fuco we were very careful that the right city and postal code got put on the package.
After Correos, we found a pharmacy: Farmacia Aldana Ruiz. Michelle needed a specific kind of blister bandaid. Again, at this pharmacy as at the others we've visited in Spain, customer service was supreme. In fact, the pharmacist walked down the street with us a little ways to make sure we understood how to get back on the Camino.
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| Walking out of Burgos, along Av. Jose Maria Villacian, which is also N-120, the same road we've seen since Logroño |
We stopped in a pub called "Maldita Locura" for lunch and a bathroom, and then we hit the trail. As a pilgrim, every time you stop to eat - be sure and use the restroom. And on the flip side, everytime you have to use a bathroom in a bar, be sure and buy something.
Walking out of town, we passed the University of Burgos. We got distracted by the university and missed the signs indicating we needed to cross the street and go right. Fortunately we had not gone more than a block when somebody driving by honked and pointed the other direction. Honking is rare in Spain. We turned back and waved our thanks.
As the Camino leaves Burgos, it goes passed the University, through one or two housing complexes and then that's it. No more buildings. No industrial section. Oh, wait, we did see the prison across the fields on the right. Eventually the Camino and Rio Arlanzon come back together just before you get to Tardajos.
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| Part of the University of Burgos |
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| This is probably my favorite, most realistic representation of Santiago. |
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| This is looking back at the spot were we took our 1st break on the trail that day. We sat in the shade of the trees behind the benches. |
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| Opposite our shady trees was this one with the only Camino marker I've seen on a tree. (Unlike the Appalachain Trail where nearly every marker is on a tree) |
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| Walking along the freeway, this flat, dry section is a hint of the days and weeks to come. |
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| The Camino and Rio Arlanzon meet one last time |
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| On the outskirts of Tardajos is our Albergue: La Fabrica Click HERE to see where I took this picture from. |
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| NICE albergue |
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| ok, the beds are small but the bathroom made up for it |
Earlier I wrote about how much I liked the albergue El Peregrino in Atapuerca. This one rivals it. We ended the day with a good dinner enjoyed with the other pilgrims. This day we met an older couple (she was a retired attorney) that have been traveling the world for years. They enjoyed telling us all about their travels. We also met a lady from Australia, walking with her teen age son. We would see all of these people a couple more times on the trail.
Even though we had walked less than 12km on the Camino de Santiago (about 7 miles) we were tired from walking around the cathedral and around Burgos to get to Correos. There was a cold wind outside, but we slept good.
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