Image: Map of the route to Santiago, Louise’s iPhone, June 2022
In this five-part series, we’re sharing our experiences, as well as pilgrim and local insights, into five of the bigger town and city stops along the Camino de Santiago (Camino Frances) pilgrimage route. The towns and cities of Pamplona, Logroño, Burgos, Leon and Santiago de Compostela all make for perfect places for a rest day along the Camino or even just a weekend away.
My hope is that this series will provide you with some really useful information and advice if you’re planning your own Camino or just some inspiration for a different weekend away in some more authentically Spanish cities than the usual tourist haunts.
Image: Burgos Cathedral by 📸 rubns28 on Pixabay
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This week is the third in our series on Cities of the Camino, focusing on the beautiful city of Burgos. Burgos is a popular spot to start the Camino de Santiago, and we met many pilgrims who were starting in this city.
While the walk into Burgos from our previous night at San Juan de Ortega was a relatively short 26km, it was one of the hardest walks we’d experienced. Arriving in Burgos, you have two choices: walking a slightly longer but more picturesque route along the river and through some woods, or a shorter walk along the main road.
We’d planned to take the prettier route however when we arrived at the point where the two paths split, we were out-voted by our two children. They had discovered via Google Maps that there was a McDonald’s on the outskirts of Burgos. 😔
When you’re walking the Camino de Santiago with an 11 and 15-year-old, it’s important that they feel some level of control over their day-to-day experience and get a few treats along the way. And so instead we pounded city pavements through the industrial outskirts of Burgos in search of those golden arches. As it turned out, the air conditioning was very welcome.
Burgos is one of the largest cities along the Camino with a beautiful historic centre and probably the most breathtaking of the cathedrals we visited on our journey.
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