This was day 10 of our almost one month long Camino de Santiago adventure. Click on the Camino de Santiago label to see all related posts.
I got out of bed with a feeling of anticipation and also a little bit of fear. The first few steps were accompanied with "Ouch, ouch, ouch..." whispered through my teeth. After a while it got better and I had to admit the pain was just a little bit more bearable compared to the previous day.
It seemed like this new friend of mine called Tendinitis would not go away easily. I knew that if it was going to get at least a bit better every day, I would be able to get through it. I was just hoping it would keep getting better.
We ventured into another cold and cloudy day pretty early. The winding path soon started climbing up a hill and into the fog. I started raining again.
For a while we were walking next to a barb wire fence that seemed to be built around an army base of some kind.
The walk was pretty uneventful and because of the steady rain I kept my photo gear dry inside my backpack. When we got closer to Burgos the scenery turned from bad to worse. Endless suburbs with many industrial complexes. Gloomy weather also did not help and dull shades of gray seemed even greyer.
Our hiking boots were letting moisture in again. Nevertheless it was not as bad as on the second day. We were glad we have bought ourselves quality hiking boots that did not cause blister problems even when wet. Nowadays you can get quality hiking boots almost in any supermarket as well as in specialised sport stores.
Considering the situation we decided to do another short walking day and give my leg an opportunity to recover faster. This also meant we will be able to spend more time in Burgos. Stopping there for the night gave us a whole afternoon to check out the city center. We could have easily spent a few days there but unfortunately our tight schedule did not allow it.
It is only 24 kilometres from Agés to Burgos, but bad weather and endless suburbs of Burgos in addition to my leg problems, resulted in another long and tiring day.
It was a long walk to the historic center but the good thing was that once we got there the rain stopped and we were able to search for an albergue without our rain ponchos. For a change we were still early and at first we tried our luck with a couple of smaller options. Since they were both already fully booked, we went for the newly opened Albergue Municipal de Peregrinos de Burgos with 150 posts. It is located just a stone-throw from the cathedral and costs only 5 Euro.
The only thing it lacks is a bit of character, but I guess that was not the main thing they had in mind during the construction.
We were happy to finally get out of our wet hiking shoes. As we learned during many previous wet days our Goretex hiking shoes endured 2-3 hours of rain, after that water started leaking through.
After settling in, our daily routine followed. When we were finished with our stretching-shower-massage-laundry procedure we went exploring the city. In our sandals, as usually.
We took time to admire the magnificent cathedral but decided to skip the tour of interior due to the entrance fee. Nevertheless we managed to take a quick peek inside and liked what we saw.
We decided to take a slow stroll around the center and look for a place to eat. We found a perfect place with great food. We did pay 2 Euro more for the pilgrim menu than usually, but it was well worth it. You can feast your eyes on the below photo of the delicious dessert.
We would love to explore the center some more but were already pretty tired when we were finished with our dinner. I was positively surprised that the pain in my leg was perfectly bearable when I carried no backpack.
However, instead of wandering the streets some more, we went back to the albergue to chat with our 3 Slovene room mates. These three pilgrims were the only Slovenes we met on the Camino.
Burgos is definitely another one of the places on the Camino Francés where we could easily spend a couple of extra days. Unfortunately due to our tight schedule we had to move on.
Clicking on any one of above photos will reveal them all in a much more flattering resolution.