Spain
Río Cardeñadijo

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    • Day 20

      Day 17 Burgos to Hornillos del Camino

      October 7, 2023 in Spain ⋅ 🌙 52 °F

      We left Burgos just as it was turning light. We came across a very " blingy" mosaic Pilgrim. We are now venturing into a region known as the Maseta....rolling hills and long flat stretches with sparse villages. We walked past a lot of murals in Tardajos and stopped there for brunch. The highlight of the day though was stopping at Ermita de Nuestra Senora de Monasterio, a very small church in the village of Rabe de Las Calzadas. We were given a small medallion around our necks then blessed and hugged by the sweetest little nun...It brought tears to my eyes. We ended the day in a place called Hornillos del Camino, where the owner of a small hostel/hotel picked us up and took us 2.6 k to the village of Isar. Accommodations on the Maseta are harder to come by because the distances are longer and albergues fewer.Read more

    • Day 15

      Day 12- Rest in Burgos

      September 17, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 63 °F

      This is our first rest day. Was kind of ancy this morning as I was at a cafe and watching pilgrims start their day but now have settled into the day and enjoying the rest and getting used to the knee brace and letting the meds do their thing. CJ and I toured the cathedral and I have a few pics from that. Will spend the rest of the day relaxing as our hotel room is right across from the cathedral and we have a terrace that makes people watching enjoyable. It has been raining a bit and the pilgrims are beginning to arrive in the city. They are a bit soggy:)
      Tomorrow we will start the second third of the journey !
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    • Day 14

      Day 11- Ages to Burgos

      September 16, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 72 °F

      We traveled from Ages to Burgos today. It was about 14 miles.. As we were staying out of town, the owner of our hotel for the night drove us back to Ages at 7am for a very reasonable price. He was a very nice guy.

      Our walk started in the dark and for the first time, I was actually cold as it was 58 and windy. The terrain is mostly flat except for this one section with a steep up then a steep down. The steep up went great, the steep down…. Well that was really tough on my knee.
      After that I decided to use the ace bandage I had bought a few days ago and it helped a bit . As the day progressed it was hurting a bit more so I kept adjusting the wrapping to find what would work the best.
      So during one of my wrap sessions a man from another pilgrim group , we had been passing them or them us for the last several days, came over to me and pointed at my knee and then his knee. He had a knee brace on . He does not speak English so I smiled and said yes we both have a knee issue. He took off his pack and rummaged thru it and found an extra knee brace he had and handed it to me! I mean how great is that!
      I put it on and it was a bit big for me but that combined with the ace bandage got me to Burgos. Just a great example of pilgrims on the path together.
      As we were nearing Burgos, CJ mentioned that there was a hospital .25 miles from where we were and he had read a post that it was relatively inexpensive in Spain. He went on to advise that his was the last big city we would be in for awhile and perhaps it was time to find out if something was really wrong with the knee. When did kids get so smart:)
      I walked into the ER, used google translate to communicate my problem. 150 euro price. I sat in the waiting room for 30 minutes and they asked me to come back. Using google translate talked with the doctor. He played around with the knee for a bit and sent me for an X-ray. He walked me to the X-ray center. I sat there for 5 minutes. They came out and said that they need 2 X-rays and the second one would cost more as my fee allowed for one. I said fine. They did the X-rays.
      I was sent back to the doctor in the ER. By the time I got there he had already reviewed the X-ray and said everything is fine it is just inflammation. Gave me a prescription for an anti inflammatory drug, a cream and said get a sports knee brace. He did mention something about rest as well:) I was done in 45 minutes. Went back to the desk to asked how much I owed for the X-ray……13 euro…

      Went to the pharmacy and handed the front desk person my prescription. She walked into the back and came out with the drugs and cream. I used google translate to ask for a knee brace. She came out and measured my knee then walked over to where the braces were , selected the right size, price for all three…29.50 euros…..
      I think they have health care nailed in Spain!!!

      So rest will be rest of today then all day tomorrow then hopefully back on the trail. Will do a bit of sightseeing with CJ tomorrow as he has become a fan of the old churches and Burgos has a very large cathedral.

      Not many pictures today as I was a bit fixated on the knee today

      The Camino sure did provide today. What a wonderful experience!
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    • Day 16

      Day 17. Rest Day in Burgos

      May 15, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

      Instead of going for a long walk today, I played the role of tourist. A rest day allowed for the exploration of Burgos, once the capital of old Castile for almost 500 years and home of El Cid, a great Spanish warrior and hero during the 11th century.
      The most prominent structure in Burgos is the cathedral, built in 1221, but not completed until 1567. I did a tour of the cathedral, and as on person commented on in addition to its beauty “this place is a city in itself, with roads everywhere.” It’s that big. It’s known for its spectacular architecture, unique art collection, including paintings, tombs and stained-glass windows. I spent three hours there. I had hoped to see some museums, but they were closed on Mondays.
      I’m going to keep this one short because the photos speak much better than any words I could wield together.
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    • Day 15

      Day 16. Burgos

      May 14, 2023 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

      I had a heavy walking day ahead of me, so I opted for a 6:30 am start. Also, we were expecting rain, forecasted to start at about 10:00 am, so I wanted to get as far as I could before the showers began. For the first 5-6 kms, the terrain was muddy, with a thick, sticky texture that made walking difficult causing a lot of slip-sliding. And the people I met along the way had stayed in the same hotel I was in.
      Once I passed them, I met nobody for the next hour which was very unusual. After that the only person I met was an elderly French man who suddenly popped out of the woods about 50 feet ahead of me. He shared with me that he owned 6 film/sound editing studios in Paris and Biarritz and it was now a family business. He is planning to do the whole Camino at a 12 km/day pace and 15 minutes later I found out why - he had a prostate issue causing a sudden need to pee, so off he went into the woods again. I don’t know what’s going to happen when there’s no woods.
      I continued to the first village, about 12 km from where I started this morning, and there was nothing open, so I continued, but still hardly anybody on the trail. After going through another small village and seeing nobody along the way, I started paying close attention to the signage. We have three ways of assuring we’re on track: yellow arrows, Camino shell, and following other pilgrims. Since there were no pilgrims, I had to pay close attention to the other two. At one point I had not seen another pilgrim for over an hour, but following the arrows led me to path that ended with a T-junction to a busy highway, with no arrow indicating if I should go right or left. Since going right would have had returning to where I came from, I turned left, continuing on a busy highway, but there were no arrows for at least half a km, so I stopped and backtracked feeling I may have taken a wrong turn. One km back, I met two Spaniards , Raphael and Louise (likely misspelled but that’s how he pronounced it) who assured me I was on the right track. Raphael only spoke Spanish, but Louise conversed a little in French. I stayed with them for about 5 kms but difficult for me to maintain their pace.
      The problem with this section is that there are few villages, and Lon stretches without accommodations. I’ve heard of some pilgrims taking a taxi to Burgos to get accommodations, then rehiring a taxi to return them to the same spot the following day. Because of the expense, I’m sure many just stay in Burgos.
      As I got closer to Burgos, I did meet a few more pilgrims, but there was one area where road construction had us pretty close to fast moving vehicles for half a km. Also, we did have to wear raincoats, but only for an hour.
      Overall, I did the 36 km (and a little extra) reaching my hotel by 3:45. Sore feet, but no blisters. The hard part was at the end. I had reached Burgos by km 32, and hoped I was close to my hotel, but Burgos is a big city- took me one and one-half hrs to get there
      Tomorrow I have a free day in Burgos.
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    • Day 16

      13 San Juan de Ortega – Burgos

      August 12, 2022 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 34 °C

      Der Tag heute stand unter dem Zeichen der Erde, besser des Steins, und zwar in seiner dichteren Form, so eine, die viel Widerstand gibt, besonders auf die Fußsohlen. Die haben nämlich heute ganz schön gelitten. So komme ich sehr schnell von dem inneren Erlebnis am frühen Morgen zu der äußeren knallharten Realität.
      Nach dem Sonnenaufgang habe ich schnell einen kleinen Laden gefunden, in dem ich einen als Café verkleideten Kakao – so einen aus einer Maschine, mit der du von Kaffee über Schokolade bis zur Gemüsebrühe alles bekommen kannst – getrunken habe. Aber immerhin: ein Frühstück. Das war auch gut so. Denn jetzt ging es über die Berge bei Atapuerco – das ist da, wo man in den 90er Jahren ein Skelett gefunden hat, älter als ein Neandertaler. Das war ein Weltsensation. Nun begegnet mir schon zum dritten Mal in diesem Jahr die Steinzeit: die Venus von Willendorf im Kunststudium – die Höhlenmalereien in der Grotte Chauvet letzten Monat – und nun dieser alte Vorfahr, allerdings habe ich den nur am Rande liegengelassen. Der Boden war ausgesprochen steinig, so mit kleinen groben Felsen.
      Als die Sonne dann höher stieg, habe ich festgestellt, dass ich meinen schönen Walter-Wanderhut in der Albergue vergessen habe. Er baumelt da wohl noch unter dem oberen Stockbett, wo ich ihn am Abend zuvor hingehängt hatte und noch gedacht hatte: „Vergiss ihn bloß nicht!“
      Oben angekommen hatte ich schon einen wunderbaren Blick auf die Ebene und mittendrin Burgos. Das war um 8 Uhr – da war ich letztlich erst um 2.
      Der Weg schottert sich den Berg runter, kieste sich ein weiteres Stück, bis er sich als Straße mutiert zur nächsten Cafeteria asphalte. Die Straße schlängelte sich durch ein paar Dörfer, überquerte die Autobahn, wurde breiter und breiter – der Anteil für uns Pilger immer schmaler, bis er ganz verschwand. Über Kilometer ging es in großen Windungen an einem Flugplatz vorbei, immer den Blick auf die großen Gebäudeklötze des Industriegebiets vor Burgos gerichtet. Dort angekommen unterhielt ich mich mit einem Mann, der mir entgegen kam, auf Spanglish: „Diez kilómetros á Burgos! –. Where you from? - … fuente, agua …“
      Und tatsächlich: an der Hauptstraße angekommen, fand ich das Schild: 10 km bis ins Zentrum. Und die hatten es in sich: 10 km gerade aus, vier Spuren, Parkstreifen, Fahrradweg – wenig Schatten – und dann diese Betonfliesen, schrecklich hart. Meine Fußsohlen schmerzten bald.
      Es gab keine Bar. Nach 5 km fand ich eine Tankstelle, nach einem weiteren einen McDonalds, den ich links liegen ließ. Dann waren es immer noch 4 km, die nicht enden wollten. (Insgesamt waren es heute 26 km.)
      Also, Burgos, so geht das nicht!
      Auf dem letzten Stück habe ich noch Paul getroffen, ein Franzose aus Angers. Ich habe ihn die letzten Tage schon öfters gesehen. Nun haben wir uns angesprochen und ausgetauscht. Er läuft auch bis Santiago, wir werden uns wohl öfter sehen. Hasta luego – bis später.
      Vor über 20 Jahren war ich schon einmal hier in Burgos, zusammen mit Vanda und den Berghaus-Jungs. Das Kapitel könnt ihr unten in den Fotos nachlesen.
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    • Day 124

      Burgos #1

      July 3, 2018 in Spain ⋅ 🌙 63 °F

      We arrived in Burgos today. 🙂 Remember when I said we were not going to take a rest day? Well, we changed our minds. Once we got to our hotel room, we realized how tired our bodies were. Plus, this way we get to stick with our group and spend some more time with those who are leaving to go back home...and get to see some of the amazing sites in this city that we will probably never get to see again.

      So...Both Alan and I plan on touring the inside of the cathedral tomorrow, visiting the museum, and maybe checking out the castle. All of that will happen after we sleep in a bit instead of getting up at 5 am. 🙂

      Here are a few pics and video from today
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    • Day 125

      Burgos #2

      July 4, 2018 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 70 °F

      It felt so good to sleep in a bit this morning! Our bodies needed it. We explored a little this morning by touring the Cathedral - oh my goodness! I couldn’t even begin to capture it all in pictures/video. Just looking up at the different domes was amazing, let alone the paintings, tapestries, and sculptures. It’s hard to comprehend how long it must have taken to complete the different works of art. We also got to see some fiesta celebration with a parade of the giants and big heads. They are in one of the video snippets and a picture I added here.

      This afternoon we went to the Museum of Evolution which houses some of the oldest evidence of human life on our planet- another “wow” experience. The castle didn’t make the list today, because we decided to do what the Spanish do and had a siesta. Everything pretty much closes down from 2:00 until 5:00 or later, so why not rest ourselves 🙂.
      Restaurants don’t really open up for dinner until 8:00 or later which is a schedule that we are not used to.

      I thought I would attach a picture of my Pilgrim Credential today. This is what we need to stay in the different pilgrim albergues along the way. We have to have it stamped each day, and then during the last 100 kilometers it must be stamped twice a day as proof of our journey. Cafes, churches, and other places also have stamps. Once we get to Santiago de Compostela, we will show our Pilgrim Credential and then receive a certificate of our journey. That seems like it will take forever, since we have only gone 180 miles and we still have 320 to go 😳.

      Tonight we had a goodbye dinner for four of our people who are heading back home. We are sad to see them leave 😕...such good people. But, on a happy note - I met another fellow WSU Cougar and his wife who are walking the Camino. GO COUGS!!! They had dinner with us tonight and we hope to see them along the way.

      Tomorrow, we head to Hornillos 🙂
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    • Day 9

      Logrono to Burgos

      September 26, 2018 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

      "Today will be a much easier day", Carlos assured us. "It's only about 15 km of easy walking and will only take about 3 hours". Of course we later found out that this was a bald faced lie.

      The day began pleasantly enough. I awoke long before the first light of sunrise and decided to look out my window. Although the hotel was situated in the commercial centre of Logrono, I was somewhat surprised to see a steady stream of pilgrims were already out walking. Each of them was labouring under the weight of their heavy backpacks. I looked about my comfortable hotel room and could not help feeling a little guilty. But not for long.

      To walk the entire length of the Spanish Camino, especially for those carrying all their own luggage, certainly requires a huge degree of perseverance and dedication. We had only walked around 40 km so far and most of us were already feeling the effects of the repetitive walking. I was certainly glad that I had a clean and comfortable bed to look forward to each evening and very, very glad that our luggage was being transported each day in the bus.

      Our day began with a bus drive to the town of La Guardia (just like the famous airport). In this La Guardia there were no planes in sight, just a collection of very old buildings and a large church. We had been booked into a large winery for a tour of the premises and a wine tasting. Since I have us much interest in wine as I do on the history of the dung beetle, I did find the couple of hours we spent there rather tedious. The underground tunnels, however, were quite fascinating.

      The bus then transferred us to the start of the walk at Montes de Oca. The first 4 km of the walk were through lovely green forests and the relative cool of the morning made it quite easy to do. Since rest stops were in short supply along this section, we stopped for lunch at a large cafe. I ordered a beef casserole which was quite delicious.

      We then came back outside to find that the temperature had climbed a few degrees. The Spanish sunshine made it feel even hotter than it probably was. At this stage we were still under the delusion that we only had about 11 km to walk. How hard can that be ?

      Almost immediately we were faced with a steep and prolonged climb. Not the thing you want after you have been resting for the previous hour. It did not take long for the usual culprits to speed away from the front of the group, leaving about 8 people to make up the remainder. At this point I must mention Douglas for the incredibly patient way he stayed back to ensure that everyone was OK. Although he could have easily outpaced everyone, he was content to put other people's well being before his own wishes. This takes a very special type of person and demonstrates something of the true spirit of the Camino.

      The path itself was often very rocky and unstable , making the walking quite tiring. The first climb was the most significant, however there were several more steep pitches that we encountered along the way. For many kilometres we walked along a somewhat monotonous path through a forested area. Unfortunately the path itself was exposed and the trees offered little shade.

      Although we were making steady progress, the hours started to tick by. By 5 pm we were still walking and there was no sign of the Monastery that was meant to mark the end of the stage. It was very clear that the original promise of "15 km" was hopelessly inaccurate.

      Just as the heat was starting to really take effect we cam e across a carload of people offering cold drinks and snacks for a donation. I suspect that, at this isolated location, this was actually a clever way to gain maximum revenue. I am sure that most people donated much more than the drinks would normally cost.

      It was only at sometime after 6pm that we finally arrived at the day's end. My GPS said we had walked over 18 km and it certainly felt like it. We all took the opportunity for a rest and a drink before boarding the bus for the final transfer to Burgo.

      Our hotel was situated right in the middle of the city and we were rather excited to discover that it was a 4 star hotel with enormous rooms. In fact it was probably the best hotel we have had so far. The evening dinner was also well received (no chicken), although I still cannot understand the practise of providing unlimited wine without charge, but if you want anything else you must pay for it. Not only does this seem unfair to me, but it also encourages drinking to excess. That seems to have become an unfortunate part of life on the Camino.

      As I retired to bed for the evening I could not but wonder how the portly fellow from Montreal was progressing. We had met him two days earlier and he had been having a hard time of things. I really hoped that he was still moving towards his own personal goal.
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    • Day 15

      Katedralen i Burgos

      July 3, 2015 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

      Efter några timmar är vi nu framme vid katedralen. En imponerande byggnad som inger respekt. Vandringen idag började på landet men övergick snart i vägar i förstäder till Burgos. Måste klaras av men lite trist. I Burgos möttes vi av en flicka i rullstol, en ingenjör och en vandrare.Read more

    You might also know this place by the following names:

    Río Cardeñadijo, Rio Cardenadijo

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