Friday 5/24/19 – Well I did the “follow the sun” approach today and since it was going to rain all along the coast, I hopped a train and went sort of southwest toward Madrid and visited the town of Burgos.
Burgos is situated right at the heart of the Pilgrim’s Route to Santiago on what is known as the French Section. The last few days I’ve been seeing many people with large backpacks and having a large clam shell hanging off of it signifying that they are on their pilgrimage walk. I keep meaning to take a picture to show you.
The Camino de Santiago known in English as the Way of Saint James among other names, is a network of pilgrims’ ways or pilgrimages leading to the shrine of the apostle Saint James the Great in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tradition has it that the remains of the saint are buried. Many follow its routes as a form of spiritual path or retreat for their spiritual growth. It’s also popular with hiking and cycling enthusiasts and organized tour groups.
There is a really good movie called “The Way” with Martin Sheen that explains a lot about it.
The biggest tourist draw is the huge Burgos Cathedral. The front desk person at my hotel laughed and said it is so big, people in Spain use it to describe big things they’re dealing with, like “that issue is as big as the Burgos Cathedral.”
It is so big, I had to use the first 3 pics to capture the outside facade. I just included one pic from the inside which was the massive altar. Construction began on the Cathedral in 1221. While it’s not quite as big as St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, I was still very impressed.
The next two pics are of statues they randomly had placed around town. They were so life like and as you can see, where the gold color was, people would rub them on places for good luck.
The rest of the pics are mostly of all the cool doorways I saw walking around town. I’m always fascinated with old medieval doorways and thought if those doors could talk… what they’ve seen and heard over the years would be amazing.
The one doorway into “La Mafia” restaurant I felt I should enter due to my Italian Heritage. While I didn’t, I felt like it was a cool way to advertise the restaurant!
The last pic is the most important door of them all. This was the main doorway into the walled city back in the 14th century. It was dedicated to Emperor Charles V. There are many important people carved into its archway with the Virgin Mary being at the top. It is called the Arch of Santa Maria.
And here is a funny Burgos tidbit. Each Jan 30th, the town celebrates San Lesmes festival in honor of the town’s patron saint, St. Adelelmus (Lesmes) marked by the giving out of bread rolls called “panecillos del santo”. Interesting!
Well that’s all for today. Hope everyone is having a great Friday. TGIF! Enjoy!
Jeff
The Wandering Italian 