Today is a planned rest day. It is also Linda’s 80th birthday!
We began the day by sleeping in. Next, we had a leisurely breakfast at one of the few cafes open in this city of 200,000 people on a Monday morning at 9:30!!
While this cafe specialized in sweets such as churros, we opted for just plain toast, which. was fresh and soft. The large, hot cafe con leche was also welcome on this cool (49F) late May morning.
On the walk back to our room, we stopped by two different ATM’s to replenish our stash of €€€, to carry us through to Leon.
Back at our room, we continued enjoying the day off and leisurely reading, blogging and napping.
Walking by the Catedral as we scouted out potential lunch spots.
At 2:00 we walked to a nearby restaurant and had our main and probably only meal.
Linda didn’t care for her soup, so she moved on to her next course of chicken with lemon sauce.We also split an order of calamari. The chicken and calamari were good.And Jim had a pepperoni and peppers pizza.
We wrapped up the dessert and carried it back to our room.
As planned, we boarded a bus at 9:00 to Burgos. The bus stop was a mere half mile walk from our hostal. This skipped some 20 miles of walking that we have decided not to do on our last three Caminos, including today. It’s not extremely difficult, the services along the way are minuscule and it includes walking through a highly industrial section leading into the city. First time pilgrims definitely should experience it, as we did our first 4 times.
our bus leaving Villafranca, destination, Burgos.our empty bus after depositing us at Burgos station.
We stopped at our hotel to determine room availability. The desk clerk was in full non-commit mode, indicating the normal checkin time was 4:00pm!!
So, we had breakfast, then began what turned out to be a 5 1/2 hour wait to eventually get into our room.
Burgos is a beautiful old city and a building watching and people watching paradise, and we know our way around pretty well as it’s a must stop, usually multiple days, for our Caminos.
Breakfast at the hotel cafe… catedral in background.The Santa María arch leading into the Plaza de Rey San Fernando and the Catedral de Santa María de Burgos.The Catedral de Santa María After a lot of walking around, we found this comfortable park bench in the shade and settled in for some people watching.Another short stroll among the folks to check on our room again.Giving up on the room, we walked up this street where we stayed in 2024 to find a favorite restaurant.We were already actively pursuing our goat cheese salad, before Linda reminded Jim to take a photo! The La Casona house wine (Rioja tempranilla red) was wonderfully bold, fruity and a perfect paring for our tasty salad.
At 3:15 we walked back to our hotel, finally getting access to our room and settled in for the rest of the day.
sitting area of our studio apartment.Private bathroom and kitchen area of the studio apartment. First order after checkin was washing our clothes and finding places to hang for drying overnight.
Jimandi 