Burgos – October 9, 2016

When we started out this morning, the weather was ominous – dark, low hanging clouds that looked more like rain than sun.  By late morning the sky had cleared leaving a nippy east wind that blew in our backs all day.  It has changed from late summer to early fall in just a couple days.

There was a large ‘alto’ in the middle of the walk, some 3 or 4 hundred meters climb of some of the roughest trail yet.  A forgiving grace was that it is blooming time for the native fall crocus – there are tiny purple blooms sticking up from the most unforgiving stony soil. You can’t be unhappy in the face of such courageous plants.

We knew it was going to be a rough day as the travel organizer had it listed as 22 km, but when we later checked (after booking), all the references suggested more like 27.  Now, we had thought we might tolerate 22, but 27 was too far considering Vic‘s feet, and my delicate condition (the man-cold, you know).

Accordingly we devised ‘A Plan’.  We would walk to the outskirts of Burgos and catch a city bus to the center of the city.  That was only listed as 17 km.  Easy.  Well, as it happens the Camino appears to have been rerouted around the other side of the airport, and it was more like 20 km by the time we reached habitation.  There, right in front of us, was a bus stop.  And there it said in plain Spanish “No Service Sundays.  Use Line 4”.  Some skilled map reading indicated Line 4 joined up somewhere Down There, so we started walking in that direction along a four lane divided highway.  After a couple km we spotted a bus stop, just as a number 4 bus passed it.  So, half an hour later the next one came by and we were on our way to the city.  It dropped us a couple blocks from our hotel for 1 euro each.  Way to go, pilgrim! But it was still a 27 km day.

The hotel is across the river from the big ornate gate to the cathedral square.  We have a third floor room with a view of the gate and the cathedral.  We could not have paid for a better view!  But the hotel is what I call New Spanish architecture.  No, maybe New European, as many of the Italian hotels were the same style.  Recently completely renovated, lots of chrome and glass, and nothing really works well. The designer obviously never stayed there.

There are lights all over, and switches and wall plugs.  The trick is to find what controls what.  Sometimes a switch will control a light and a plug.  Don’t try to charge something with the light out.

This bathroom has all frosted glass walls, and the light is on a motion sensor. As soon as you go in, the light comes on, illuminating the whole bedroom as well as the bathroom. No clandestine mid-night trips to the toilet.  And if you sit quietly for a minute or so, the light goes out, leaving you in the dark. A small movement and the cycle starts over.  Okay if you like sitting on the toilet to flashing lights. As in some other places, all of the electricity to the room is turned on by putting your key card in a slot near the door. You could defeat the motion sensor by turning off all the power to the room.  Of course, then nothing would charge and the heat wouldn’t work.

The shower is a glass box 24 inches square.  You can’t bend over to wash your knees.  When Vic turned it on, the hand shower was pointed up at full volume and washed the whole bathroom over top of the stall.  They cannot make a shower stall that doesn’t leak somehow.  That said, the place looks nice.  And the view is great.

One of the towns passed by today was Atapuerca.  This is an important archaeological site – remains have been found which indicate human (and possibly pre-human) occupation for the order of a million years.  The oldest in Europe. The museum was a bit off the trail, and with the day looking as it did we passed it up, based on the information that the display in Burgos was better.  We’ll see. Hit Wikipedia for more information.