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Published: September 2nd 2015
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Burgos city gate We are now fully on the schedule and direction of the workshop. Today's focus was on a tour of Burgos. Burgos is a city of about 200,000 people with a substantial history from ancient times through Ferdinand and Isabella to modern times. Yes, Columbus was here too, after his second voyage. He had to come here because the king and queen weren't going to travel to meet him!
We began this morning meeting Pilar, a local guide, who explained various sights on a walking tour of the old city. We started with a Gothic city gate that leads into a large square by the Burgos Cathedral. This gate is on the modern Camino and has been such for centuries. It is almost across the street from the hotel and leads directly to the cathedral, identified as Spain's most spectacular Gothic cathedral. It was begun in 1221. We had a lengthy detailed tour of it, including the tomb of El Cid (no one knows just how much of his remains remained to be moved from his previous burial.) The cathedral was indeed very ornate, but it is easy to see so many cathedrals as to be less moved.
The walk
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Burgos cathedral continued on through the heart of the old city, past plazas, palaces, and memorials to Columbus and El Cid. We then went by bus to the Convent de las Huelgas, founded by the sister of Richard the Lion Heart in 1187. The bus tour continued through old and new parts of the city with a stop at the top of the hill directly above the cathedral. There is an ancient fort, but so little is left of it we were told it was not worth going in to it. Apparently when Napolean's forces left the city in defeat, they took as much loot with them as they could and destroyed defenses.
That brought us back to town for lunch about 3 pm. We were both quite hungry and did not find the place Pilar recommended, so we just picked one on the Camino route. Their English was less than my Spanish, without English language menus. Unfortunately the few terms we know for food mostly did not appear on the menu. Madalyn ordered a Ceasar salad and Gary the smallest hamburger listed. Both were huge and we left stuffed. Hamburgers are different here and different from the 1970s. The Hamburguesa
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El Cid statue on city gate Completa came complete with huge meat patty, cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and a fried egg sunnyside up on top. The bun was useless.
We both came back to the room for a nap, and Gary went to a nearby museum showing work done on the evolution of ancient man from 800,000 years ago. Caves nearby supported heidelbergensis, antecessor, neanderthal, and sapiens. The displays were very informative but had not been updated with recent DNA analyses showing neanderthal DNA in modern Europeans. He wanted to spend more time and see more of it.
We had an hour and a half of workshop time, focusing on letting something go as part of the pilgrimage. Then to dinner with the group, menu selected by Victor, our tour leader. The food was delicious, but we ate way too much again, and got back to the hotel at10:15. We repacked to begin actually walking the Camino for a little bit tomorrow on the way to León.
The weather is now much cooler, around 18°C, breeezy, with rain last night. Yes we are actually wearing wind breakers. Gary's cold continues to progress with a very runny nose, but he intends not to be
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Burgos city overlook from old fort seriously limited by it.
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