Bye Bye Burgos, Hello Leon

Well sadly all good things must come to an end … and our time in beautiful Burgos did just that yesterday afternoon.

We had a 15:25 train from Burgos to our next sight seeing / break from walking day in Leon this time. We were primed to make the best of our amazing treat hotel and city though for the morning before departing.

To kick things off, we enjoyed quite thoroughly a breakfast for kings! The breaky buffet at the hotel was 7euros and check out our feast below. Crazy to think this is what we can get for 7euros in one place, but only get a piece of toast with jam and coffee or juice in another place for 5euros. We will be keeping our eyes open for deals like this from here on! Big breaky means skip lunch means save money!

After we stuffed ourselves quite completely. We put our packs in the left luggage room and ventured the old city again.

We headed in the direction of the massive chapel and came upon some stone stairs heading up to a hill above the city with a sign marked Castillo (castle) – ok! Slowly, being mindful this was a tourist day not a hump it up hills day, we made it up and up to a birds eye view of the city streets we had walked the night before. Here are a few of the pics up to and from the castle heights:

From up here for the first time we heard the Sunday bells from the massive chapel – wow is about all I can say to describe them. They are rung for 15mins every hour on Sundays and are just amazing. Like give you goose bumps amazing. From up high they sounded so smooth and combined but then from close to the cathedral you could pick out each individual bell. Depending where you stood in the plaza they sounded different again. The echo of the bells off the high buildings and stone was making a few dogs in town a little crazy. One poor pouch was going in circles barking trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. Hilarious. I posted a video recording of the bells on my Instagram @brandedavison if you want to hear them.

We could not resist a few more pics of the cathedral and plaza in the morning light as we walked around the area enjoying the bells:

Finally we enjoyed our last Burgos cafe con leche (coffee with milk) outside of our amazing hotel:

We made our way by bus #25 from Plaza de Espana over to the train station and then by train for 2 hours over to Leon. We had a bit of a wait so got some sunshine naps in first!

Before departing we had our final Burgos entertainment … a guy who was a bit sketch and carrying 2 backpacks was told by security to exit the train station as he did not have a ticket. Well wouldn’t you know it as soon as our train pulled in, the sketch guy dropped one bag and went barreling for the nearest open train door – knocking the poor ole security guard down and almost between the train and the platform in the process. Sketch guy hid somewhere in the train and they could not find him. So he did end up getting the free ride to Leon he was looking for in the first place. Gong show!

Any who, the train trip itself was a really nice way to see the landscape change from green Burgos to dry Leon. We left the chilly wind, humidity, high of 21C in Burgos and stepped of the train into the dry heat of 34C of Leon. We were happy to leave that oppressive, soggy humidity behind.

We are super excited to explore Leon today. Will it stand up to Burgos? The bar is set pretty high!! Stay tuned to find out …

Brande

Beautiful Burgos

Yesterday was a purpose built break day from walking for us – and instead a fabulous, perfect and an altogether wow day in Burgos, Spain!

Our Camino Adventure has been planned around the sections of the Camino in Spain and in Portugal we want to walk AND being able to spend a day in Paris (complete), a day in Burgos (complete), a day in Leon (on our way), and some days in Porto, Lisbon and Lagos too. A well rounded adventure really!

Yesterday was our Burgos day and here are really just a few of the highlights from the day and the beautiful city ..

First it started with a real breakfast. No, no we didn’t find a albergue who knew what a breaky protein was – rather we took matters into our own hands and made our own breakfast in the shared kitchen. Mmmm eggs and meat and cheese and yum!

Then we headed down to the bus station to catch the 50min bus from Estella to Pamplona – while waiting we had our first coffee con leche (latte) of the day in the sunshine.

From the bus station in Pamplona we grabbed a quick taxi over to the Pamplona train station for a 2hr train to Burgos. The weather in Pamplona was 21 but it was cloudy and felt freezing – we were keen to train it outta there to warmer Burgos climate! A fleece in Spain in September felt just wrong!

Reaching Burgos it was a quick 30min bus into the main, ole central part of the city. We soon found out it was basically the most gorgeous city ever. I felt like we were on some amazing moving set or a Spanish version of Main Street in Disneyland. Honest, check these out:

After meeting a few locals we made our way to a front row table in the main plaza (Plaza Mayor) to do some people watching and sight seeing via chair with wine glass.

There was a wedding in that massive church and they were going crazy with firecrackers and streamers and confetti when the bride and groom came out – it was awesome, much more fanfare than the adorable bubbles at my wedding which I loved! Shortly after, the 100s of people at the wedding came walking though the plaza all dressed to the 9s. We enjoyed the fashion show while sipping a red for me and white for Lana.

We wrapped up our evening with a small dinner (tongue in cheek) at La Mafia – yup an Italian place in Spain with The Godfather as their logo. Who could resist!

Oh and did I mention we kicked it up a notch and treated ourselves to a real hotel!?

It is just amazing! No other pilgrim sounds, our very own bathroom, we could spread our stuff out, had a key to a door not a disposable sheet to a bed handed to us when checking in. Our view from a baby terrace was amazing (one of the pics above). Luxury really! And oh the sleep was amazing – I feel like a new women / pilgrim!

We are up and at em again today for a morning here in Burgos then the evening in Leon as tourists before returning to pilgrims tomorrow.

Buen Camino!
Brande