2012-09-20 Thursday

2012-09-20 Thursday

Burgos 

Camino Day 13. We took the day off. We met to go out for breakfast at 0830 and walked around until we found a place open. 

Later on we went out to visit the Cathedral, it's an impressive building, with a main church and more than 20 chapels around it, each one more ornate and more beautiful than the next. It took us more than two hours to visit the whole complex. Each chapel is dedicated to a saint, and it was build by a bishop as the resting place for his remains, although many also contained remains of rich nobles that, undoubtedly, contributed with large sums for the building of the chapel.

Afterwards, we sat at an outdoor cafe at the Plaza Mayor to drink beer, people watch and wait for 1300 when the restaurants start serving lunch. Paulo wanted to go back to the same place we ate lunch Yesterday, it was that good. While we were enjoying our drinks, Paulo noticed a beautiful young woman sitting, by herself, at the next table, and he started to tease Terry saying that, to demonstrate how much he has learned Spanish so far, he should go and ask the young woman, in Spanish, for directions to a famous monastery that Paulo wanted to visit after lunch and that he should came back to us and relate, in Spanish, what the woman told him. Paulo, as usually Paulo does, was saying all this quite loud, and I noticed the young woman turn around and look at us making a face. I thought "oh, oh, she understands English quite well." Terry demurred, saying, jokingly, that he is a well married men, and he does not approach single young woman in bars. Nancy decided that she would address the woman in Spanish, after a few pleasantries were exchanged, it became obvious that she was not Spanish, she is German. We all started to talk in English, and learned that she had just arrived a couple of days ago to spend 9 months in here teaching German and learning Spanish. When time came for lunch we invited her to join us, and she accepted it.

Lunch had a leisurely long lunch, the food and the conversations were good. Paulo and I split a salad and the same double cooked pork we ate Yesterday.  

Salad

Main course

After lunch, we went to a nearby bar for coffee, and we bumped into Linda and Cathy there. They also took the day off today. They were concerned that they had not been able to book a place a the next destination, Hornillos del Camino, small town with few options, so I called the "Casa Rural El Molino" where we will be staying, and booked a room for them. Hornillos is a tiny village with just a couple of small albergues with a total of 32 beds, not enough for the unprecedented amount of pilgrims walking the Camino this September. Our  innkeeper, at the Hostal Lar, had recommended this Rural B&B to us, it's not in any of our guides, it's 6 Km from Hornillos, but the owners pick you up there and return you to the same place in the next day. It will be a new experience, to stay in a rural B&B. 

Nancy and I went to our physical therapy sessions at 1600, while Paulo, Terry and the young German went to visit the monastery. She is staying at the same hostel we are in, but tomorrow she is moving into a Spanish family's house, where she is renting a room. I improved substantially from Yesterday, and when they offered to see us again tomorrow at 0600 (they usually open at 0700,) we immediately accepted; it will give me a third session and Nancy a second one. We were planning to hit the trail at 0700, and this way we will not affect the group's plan too much. I just need to wake up at 0530...

Nancy and Terry did not want to eat dinner, so Paulo and I went to a nearby tapas bar, and had a few tapas and glasses of the local wine, from the Ribeira del Douro" region. This is the same river of the Port Wine fame, it starts in this region and flows west to the Atlantic, at the city of Porto, in Portugal. 

Tapas

Tapas

Tapas

Tapas