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Published: November 5th 2010
View from the Castillo
viewpoint from hilltop of entire city of BurgosSo i bet your thinking where the hell would be 3150 km from Timbuktu....well that would be BURGOS OF CASTILLA y LEON, SPAIN.
Burgos meaning "village" is a large eastern city (pop. 180,000) in the autonomous community of Castilla y Leon. Known primarily for its extraordinary Gothic Cathedral it is considered by many people one of Spain's most finest jewels of religious architecture ;however, Burgos is also known for its extreme climates and grey stone architecture.
Burgos has a lot of history to it; not only did it once act as frontline fortress against Muslims and the Kingdom of Navarra, but also thriving as a staging post and trading centre for pilgrims on the walk of Camino de Santiago and finally during the Spanish Civil War, General Franco used Burgos as the base for his government in waiting.
I previously had arranged to go to Burgos with a friend and two German girls from her spanish class; however, after getting lost thanks to google maps on my way to the bus station to meet them they had to understandably leave without me. Therefore, I made the decision to go to Burgos the following weekend whether or not I
had people to go with... as nerve racking as that was... seeing as my spanish is still very little and i am completely going out on my own..
Seeing as Burgos is a 3 hour bus ride one way from Santander I decided to look into staying the night in Burgos in order to see the all of city in 2 days. In order to stay in Burgos for the night I decided to try out couch surfing. I had never done it before and i've heard some great stories from people about meeting others and experiencing something different. I was lucky and found a great couch surfing host Sarah. Sarah was a 19 year old German girl taking a gap year to decide what kind of degree she wanted to complete. While taking her time off she found a great volunteer program in Burgos to work with autistic kids.
After arriving in the city of Burgos, I met up with Sarah she showed me around the city a bit. Burgos's main attractions are like i said the Gothic Cathedral, Iglesia of San Nicholas, Iglesia de San Esteban, Stautue of El Cid, the River Rio Arlanzon, and Paseo
my couch surfing host Sarah
at the famous ____ where everything is 1 Euro del Espolon ( a great pedestrian walk way along the river).
The city was bustling as Burgos is currently in the running for Europe's 2016 Cultural Capitol City;therefore, their was a lot of people around the city and a lot going on in the middle of the town square. This is where we ran into a friend of Sarah's who invited us to a Festival Nacional de Charangas called Charamburu where he was playing that night. We went later that night and watched 3 hours of exciting and lively band music. In comparison to Canada when you think band music as in concert band; you dont think of very exciting active crowd or lively music but the Spanish are quite different. It was really cool to see how excited and interactive the crowd got as 4 bands played the festival.
After the festival that night Sarah and I met up with a accquientance of her's that she agreed to hang out with that night. Seeing as Sarah is fairly new to Burgos herself, she is/was still looking to meet new and different people so she agreed that we would meet this guy (Nacho) that has been asking her
out for weeks. In the end we met up with him and went and hung out at his place with more of his friends. When we got to Nacho's place it was amazing. Clearly his parents are quite well off and therefore his apartment was wicked nice. The best thing about it was from the deck it had an amazing view of the city; espically, the gothic cathedral! Being that it was 12pm the city was all lite up and from his deck on the 12th floor you were at perfect eye level with the top of the cathedral! Nacho had not only invited us over but 6 of his over Spanish guy friends where we ended up drinking and socializing till 4 in the morning. Only Nacho, Juan and Fernando could speak some english and really tried to integrate me into the conversation and talk with me , but otherwise i was at a loss with the other guys Alvario, Ramon, Paublo and Alberto. But they all were really nice and Sarah was really nice, and told me we could leave at any time but i didn't care. I also realized that this was an opportunity for her to
Along the Rio Arlanzon
walking around the rio arlanzon in the morning meet new people too and i wanted her to make new contacts too , also it was a great opportunity to listen and improve my Spanish by following the conversations. While there i was introduced to the spanish drink of calimixo (pronounced calimocho) which is red wine and coke mixed. It was surprisingly decent; considering it was the cheap wine lol. Overall it was a great night, even with a language barrier!
After about 5 hours of sleep crashing on sarah's couch I left her place at 10 am I said my goodbyes and thanked her for her hospitality and walked back into the city center. I immediately went to the bus station to purchase my ticket for the 4pm bus later that day. I then went in search of a place to get breakfast, as i was walking by on my way back to the city center from the bus station i followed a baker toting a large platter of fresh baked pastries towards a little bakery shop. Therefore; for 1 euro i had the breakfast of champions and croissant with chocolate filled inside! YUMMY! lol The rest of the day, i spent walking around the city, sight
seeing some of the sights i didn't with Sarah the day before and also just following the crowds exploring the city. I returned to the same place Sarah and i had lunch the day before and tried for the second time Morchilla which is a sausage Burgos is famous for. Morchilla is a blood sausage, it was grilled and served on a tiny baguette with a grilled red pepper for 1 euro. A perfect little lunch and so inexpensive way to go about having lunch!
My last experience in Burgos was while waiting for my bus, which was late and parked at the wrong terminal a man came over to me and started talking to me in spanish. I calmly explained to him, that my spanish is very little, but he was very nice and we began to talk. I honestly can't remember his name but he was from the Congo and just moved to Burgos leaving for Madrid for the week. He was very interested why i was in Spain and learning spanish. It was a great opportunity for me to practice my Spanish!
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