Day 165
Back to Burgos
Tom and I were both very happy to be back in Burgos. We had ridden through it in October and the brief glimpse we had allowed ourselves when we left our route to look at the Cathedral simply whetted our appetites. We knew we would return, we just hadn’t realised just how soon. The beautifully warm late summer weather had gone but so had the tourists.
The city began life in the area where the remains of the castle are. Excavations indicate that the Visigoths and then the Romans had lived here. Over the centuries the castle grew in size, eventually becoming the residence of the Kings of Castile, only to loose importance when the Habsburg family came to power. The castle was finally destroyed by the French in 1813. We had hoped to be able to visit a maze of tunnels that lie below the remains of the walls but no joy today. We did get to peer into the well that kept the castle supplied with water, though again we were disappointed not the be able to descend the 65 metres to the bottom via 6 spiral staircases. Well Tom was disappointed!
We descended into the town and along with only about a dozen people wandered around the vast Cathedral of St Mary of Burgos. Constructed was started in 1221 but the majority of what we saw today was from the 1400s and 1500s. I downloaded the app so I could wander around and understand more of what I was seeing. Tom captured much of the stunning stonework, stained glass windows, but not my particular favourite and main reason for visiting, El Cid’s grave!
The museum of Evolution was utterly fascinating. The depth of information enabling us to understand the ‘Origin of the Species’ could have been overwhelming but the displays were so well laid out we were soon engrossed. The child in us really loved being able to go aboard the ‘Beagle’, Darwin’s ship, built on a tilt as if at sea.
We spent the rest of our time just wandering around, people watching and eating fantastic tapas. We tried many a dish, we both loved the local Burgos speciality of Black Pudding, though thought it tasted closer to Haggis. We also ordered a dish that the very lovely staff tried to warn us we might not like. Fortunately, we loved it, all I can say was it was very tasty and we don’t want to know what part of the animal it came from!
Tomorrow we ride again, but tonight we will spend our evening hopefully getting some night time shots and perhaps a glass or two of vino, be rude not to!
