Jimandi

Depart Time: 7:30 Temp: 58F RH: 90% plus 25mph wind & rain

Walked: 7.0 mi. Camino 2024: 114 mi.

Shortly after we left Hornillos and began walking back up toward the Meseta we were met with thunder, lightning and continuous showers.

Some 60 minutes and two miles later we finally reached the Meseta as the rain stopped but the wind continued.

Other than a brief period when we walked down to an off-Camino path toward San Bol, a primitive albergue, and then returned back to the Mesata plateau, we spent the morning continuing on some 4 more miles to Hontanas.

A group of three pilgrims caught up to us and we began walking and talking together for a mile or so. One lady, age 71, was from Charleston, S.C. and was accompanied by her son and her 69 year old sister from North Carolina. The distraction of our interesting conversations made the time go by faster as the wind continued and the dark clouded skies threatened.

The group of three were faster walkers than we, and they finally wished us “buen Camino” and left us in their wake.

After 6 plus miles from our start, we sighted the steeple of Iglesia de la Inmaculada Concepción…

and as we got closer the path began to head down off the Meseta again into Hontonas, which reminds us of one of the towns of the old west seen in classical American cowboy movies.

We stopped at the bar/albergue on the edge of the village and had breakfast and chatted again briefly with our earlier pilgrim friends, before they continued on past Hontanas a few more kms to experience the Hospital de Peregrinos de San Antón, a primative albergue in the ruins of the San Anton Convent (12c).

After breakfast we walked to the El Pundito bar/albergue where we checked in and received the key for our room at La Fontana, a Casa Rural property just a few steps further down the “main street”.

After a brief rest and performing some chores, we walked across the street to have an early-dinner/late-lunch at 2:30.

The rest of the day was dedicated to reading, blogging and chillin’.

Depart Time: 7:55 Temp: 59F RH: 100%

Walked 6.3 mi. Camino 2024: 107 mi.

We arranged for a taxi to take us from our hotel, skipping about 6 miles through the city streets and suburbs of Burgos to the village of Tardajos, where we picked up the Camino.

We followed the arrows along a zig-zag path through the village exiting by the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción…

… onto the path along the road to Rabé de la Calzadas, where we stopped for breakfast.

At breakfast, we began chatting with Steve from Australia and a South Korean, couple currently living in California.

Leaving Rabé ahead of them, we figured they would catch-up and pass us as we began walking up to the Meseta on the path just outside the village.

Just before we reached the Meseta, some 2 miles later, our new pilgrim friends passed by and moved on toward Hornillos Del Camino.

The Meseta is frequently referred to as boring, repetitive and bleak. Many pilgrims choose to skip the Meseta when walking the Camino from SJPDP or Roncesvalles or Pamplona on their way to Santiago.

We began walking it for our 6th time today and consider it a favorite part of the Camino.

We think the view of Hornillos del Camino is beautiful from the top of Matamulos. And the steep walk down into Hornillos is anything but boring.

We walked into Hornillos del Camino and met our friends from breakfast and helped them find a place for the night at our Albergue called Meeting Point.

The Meeting Point owner checked us in at 12:00. Both she and the owner of the small grocery store a few doors away remembered us from our previous visits in 2022 and 2023 and made us feel especially welcomed.

Meeting Point has a nice green grass outdoor area including a small above ground swimming pool. They have both clothes washers and a dryer which will allow us to leave tomorrow with everything clean in spite of some afternoon showers.

They offer an unusual pilgrims dinner featuring homemade paella which tonight fed some 28 pilgrims all in a large dining area.

Our nearby dinner partners were from the UK, Italy (Pisa), Canada (Quebec), and South Korea.

The chatting during and after dinner continued on past 9:00, when we finally retired to our room to prepare for tomorrow’s walk back up onto the Meseta.

We took advantage of our rest day and slept in a bit.

All was quiet at 8:00 on this Sunday morning so it took a while to find a bar open for breakfast. But we soon found one not too far from our hotel.

We returned to the room after breakfast and Linda decided to chill and Jim wanted to revisit his favorite Catedral so we went our separate ways for the morning.

After paying the admission fee (5€) for pilgrims, Jim entered the Catedral and followed a guided tour app that was conveniently upload to his phone and he easily follow the narrators guidance and commentary, confirming photos and written text on the app for the “tour” throughout the entire Catedral.

The tour pace was controlled by Jim listening to and occasionally pausing and speeding up the guide’s commentary based on interest. Total time for Jim to take the tour was 2 hours. The following photos and notes are a sampling of the architecture, art, paintings and sculptures seen along the way:

One of the many stained glass windows throughout the Burgos Cathedral.

Jim returned from his tour of the Catedral in time for lunch. Yesterday, during one of our reconnaissance strolls, Linda spied a restaurant menu offering “Ensalada de queso de cabra” (mixed salad with goat cheese), So we decided to make it lunch.

After lunch, we took a stroll down toward the park by the river looking for a chocolate dessert, without having anything specific in mind. We heard some music and followed it and a gathering to a large gazebo in the park with jazz musicians performing for an appreciative mixture of local citizens of all ages and even a few pilgrims.

We listened to the music until the band took a break, then continued our stroll until settling for a Magnum double chocolate bar on our way back to the room.

We passed the rest of the afternoon organizing our stuff for continuing the walk tomorrow then returned to the park to a pizzeria for supper.

We thoroughly enjoyed our extra day in Burgos and appreciated all the many aspects of the Camino Frances that make it so special to us.

Depart Time: 8:30. Temp: 60F RH: 100%

Walked m: 2.5 mi. Camino 2024: 101 mi.

Picking up with our discussion yesterday, we’ve decided to give ourselves a break. Each of the combinations of walking and taxi required us to walk at least 10 of the 23 miles to Burgos, except one. It would require a very short walk of 3.5 miles and two different taxis… which seemed hardly worth the hassle and the cost (~80€) versus the gain of logging a few extra miles today.

But alas, after a brief discussion with the hotel concierge last night, we discovered another option… there is a bus stop less than a mile from the hotel.

So, this morning we walked to the Villafranca bus stop and…

…boarded at 9:07 for the 8:52 bus to Burgos. (Spanish buses are not quite as punctual as Spanish trains).

It was an interesting ride, taking us away from the Camino, then entering the city from a different direction than when we walked in.

We pulled into the Burgos station after the 40 minute ride and had breakfast in the station bar/restaurant.

As we walked out of the bus station, just a few steps ahead was the Santa Maria Bridge which crosses the Arlanzón River and leads immediately to the the magnificent entrance of the Arco Santa María into the Plaza del Rey San Fernando.

No matter how many times we have entered through this arch, today we were again overwhelmed by the beautiful, flamboyantly gothic and dominant Catedral de Santa María of Burgos.

We walked back out of the plaza and walked along the park that borders the Rio Atlanzón, following the Booking.com app to locate our hotel.

Once we located our “habitación”, we returned to the Plaza Rey San Fernando, found a bench with a good view of the Catedral and watched it and people until our room was ready at 12:30.

After check in, we got lunch/dinner at a nearby restaurant…

… then returned to our room to do some chores and get an early start on our two day rest in Burgos.

Depart Time: 7:30 Temp: 62F RH: 95%

Walked m: 7.7 mi. Camino 2024: 99 mi.

We had a very nice, restful evening in our La Huella room last night. In spite of all the festivities that continued through much of the evening, our room was obviously quite soundproof as the only way that one might suspect a lot of celebrating went on was all the trash left behind by the revelers, as we walked on our way out of the town.

At the halfway point of today’s walk we were looking forward to having a nice breakfast break at the San Roque albergue/bar in Villambistia, as we have on our previous 5 Caminos. But it was closed for the day, as it seems the staff was in Belorado joining the festivities we witnessed yesterday.

Not only were we disappointed, but we realized that only one other village remained with a potential breakfast stop until Villafranca and our fears were validated when we found it also closed for the day when we got there a half hour later.

So, Linda found and claimed a suitable bench and we scrambled through our daypacks for any remaining nibbles, and had an emergency “snack-breakfast” before moving on to Villafranca.

We stopped at the first bar in Villafranca (pop.147) and got off our feet at a table inside and ordered a belated, but satisfying ColaCao (hot chocolate) and tostadas.

After breakfast and just before walking up the steep hill to our hotel, we walked passed the nice Casa Rural where our granddaughters spent the night on their next to last day on their Camino in May.

We checked into San Anton Abad for the 6th time and were actually recognized by the lady who welcomed us in 2014 and several times since.

This historic Hospital de la Reina hosted up to 18,000 pilgrims per year in the 17th century and was later converted into this boutique hotel and albergue.

As on previous visits we have a grand view of the 18th century Iglesia de Santiago from our room window.

We’ve 23 miles to cover tomorrow to reach our destination tomorrow in Burgos. Along with our routine activities we devoted some time discussing how to make our way to Burgos either by walking or taxi or both and will decide in the morning, also taking weather conditions into consideration,

Still full from our late breakfast and mid-afternoon lunch/dinner, we opted to skip tonight’s pilgrimage dinner at the hotel.

It’s raining at 7:30, so we’ll retire early to give our bodies some extra healing time.

Depart Time:6:40 Temp: 64F RH: 90%

Walked m: 4.2 mi. Camino 2024: 90.9 mi.

The forecast is for thunderstorms this morning so we left Cirueña in time, hopefully, to get to Santo Domingo before the heavens opened up.

The 4 mile walk this morning from Cirueña to Santo Domingo was almost perfectly straight on rolling hills.

Just after reaching the edge of Santo Domingo, a flash of lightning was followed by raindrops, just after Jim said ” I think we made it!” He’s got to stop doing that.

We walked passed the commercial/industrial areas, through a rundown section then into the old town, passed the Cathedral and Parador hotel then found an open bar for breakfast and to get out of the rain.

A few minutes before 10:00 we walked back to the Parador lobby to rendezvous with a prearranged taxi to take us the remaining 14 miles to Belorado… making today a short walk.

Last year we also got a taxi ride like today by reportedly the only taxi driver available in the area. Today our driver was his wife, who recently became a driver, too. So taxi service in the area has doubled since last year!!

Our room wasn’t ready when we arrived at Hostal La Huella, so we waited in the restaurant and sampled some pintxos.

We checked in at noon and were pleasantly surprised by the niceness and size of our double room (with 4 beds!). The view out our bedroom window was extraordinary.

Our transported backpacks had not yet been delivered, limiting our ability to get showers, etc, so Jim ventured into the town square to get some photos of the Belorado Annual Fair.

Belorado has been settled since Roman times and was known as Bilforado by the 10th century. It was granted a charter by King Alfonso I of Aragon in 1116 that allowed for an annual fair which is being held this weekend beginning today at 1:00.

We had a very tasty, classy lunch/dinner in the La Huella restaurant.

We followed our routine this afternoon with one additional highlight. Our grandson, Collin Shick, is playing in a professional pickleball tourney in Las Vegas this weekend. Jim became aware of this via a text from Collin’s dad yesterday. The smart TV in our hostal room had YouTube access so we watched Collin and partner Jack Sock win their Round of 64 and 32 matches in the comfort of our especially nice room, doing the Camino “our way”!