Storks (see previous post) were the highlight of our trip to Burgos, but there was plenty more of interest in this very beautiful city.
This was our only trip into Castile, the central region of Spain which was the heartland of the Spanish kingdom for hundreds of years. Burgos – the medieval capital of Castile – with its grand medieval heritage (magnificent cathedral, royal monasteries, enormous castle and so on), its open landscapes, and its lack of industrial hinterland – felt quite different from the grittier, less fancy, mountainous Basque Country, despite being only a few miles south of it. On the other hand, like many cathedral cities, it also felt very much as though it had had its age of splendour and was living off past glories.
The fantastic cathedral – the first great Gothic cathedral of Spain, built in imitation of the French cathedrals – dominates the city…
This was our only trip into Castile, the central region of Spain which was the heartland of the Spanish kingdom for hundreds of years. Burgos – the medieval capital of Castile – with its grand medieval heritage (magnificent cathedral, royal monasteries, enormous castle and so on), its open landscapes, and its lack of industrial hinterland – felt quite different from the grittier, less fancy, mountainous Basque Country, despite being only a few miles south of it. On the other hand, like many cathedral cities, it also felt very much as though it had had its age of splendour and was living off past glories.
The fantastic cathedral – the first great Gothic cathedral of Spain, built in imitation of the French cathedrals – dominates the city…
… with its monumental front…
… its elegant late medieval spires…
… its ornate Renaissance tower…
…and its fortress-like cloisters:
It’s surrounded by handsome squares …
… and overlooked by the castle hill, from which great views can be had:
Inside, the Renaissance tower, with its glazed star-shaped ceiling, is stunning:
Other treasures include an amazing medieval Tree of Jesse...
… and a wealth of fine carving:
The rest of the town is full of picturesque squares and streets ….
… some of them now notably in need of a lick of paint:
The medieval Casa del Cordón is the grandest house in town, where the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella (they of the Inquisition), once held an audience with Christopher Columbus:
Like similar buildings we saw in Vitoria and Pamplona, it has been beautifully modernised inside, now housing a bank and an art gallery:
There´s not much left of the castle, high up on the hill above the town, but it was clearly a massive structure commanding extensive views of the open countryside around:
There are extensive remains of medieval gates, walls and churches around the town…
… including the great gate leading from the river into the cathedral square:
… and the church of St Nicolas with its extraordinary altarpiece:
The tree-lined river threads its way through town…
… with a fine esplanade on the cathedral side:
Burgos is a major centre on the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage route, and we saw lots of pilgrims with sticks, rucksacks and scallops. Oddly most of them seemed to be American.
A half-hour´s stroll out of town along the pilgrimage route, and along the river, is a royal medieval complex which includes the Hospital del Rey (now part of the University of Burgos)…
… and the Monasterio de las Huelgas, founded by Alfonso VIII of Castile and his wife Eleanor of England (daughter of Richard II) in 1187 to house their tombs:
Henry II (of England) and Eleanor of Aquitaine were married here in 1254 too. The Gothic chapel doubles as the Spanish royal mausoleum of the 12th and 13th centuries, and there is a fine Romanesque cloister, but alas the very famous medieval music manuscript, the Las Huelgas Codex (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Las_Huelgas), was not on display.
In recent years, Burgos has attempted, with moderate success, to re-invent itself a la Guggenheim, by opening the rather wonderful Museum of Human Evolution, in response to the extraordinary early human archaeological finds at nearby Atapuerca. I’ll write about this further in a separate post, but meanwhile here is the museum complex…
… which includes the conference centre where Pietro was attending a Virology conference:
Note the wonderful ideographic representation of the evolving human which serves as the logo for the complex:
Outside the museum is a mesmerising fountain…
… and nearby is a monument to the great historical figure of Burgos’s past, El Cid, who it turns out didn’t have much to do with Burgos apart from having been born there, and wasn’t quite the Christian hero he was supposed to have been. But hey…
We almost, but not quite, failed to go to the modest but lovely Museum of Burgos:
We’re very glad indeed that we went, however, if only because of this spectacularly wonderful enamelled Romanesque panel, one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen all year:
Finally, a word about the speciality sweet of Burgos, the ‘yema’:
If you like pure raw egg yolks and sugar, you’ll enjoy it. Otherwise, you might find them slightly disgusting. So do as I did, and take them home and make marzipan out of them…
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