Burgos, the Spanish Edinburgh

Our last travel destination before I returned to Budapest for the holidays was Burgos, 240 km northeast from Salamanca. It is the capital of the province of Burgos and is still located within the autonomous community of Castilla y León – just like Salamanca, Zamora and Valladolid. This time, the goal was to experience everything Burgos had to offer to its fullest and forget about our responsibilities – or in other words, to warm up a little bit for the Christmas period. Therefore, we decided to book a hotel room for two nights. This way, we could have stayed almost three whole days in Burgos, but as always, we managed to reduce it to barely two...

Delivering messages in the family I am living with has always been a little bit difficult, because mobile phones do not play such a big role in their lives as they do for an average person in the 21st century. I have to tell you that in many cases this is something very positive, but in some others it causes unnecessary problems. This is exactly what happened on the 11th of December. First of all, it was already quite clear that we were going to leave later than expected (or than I expected it), but when we were about to get inside of the car, we had to realize that only the older car was in the garage – which we try to avoid using for bigger trips. The father of my boyfriend had the other one in the centre of Salamanca but in spite of calling him over and over again, we could not reach him. After involving our logistical skills, we found a way to switch cars: we had to leave the old car in a parking garage in the middle of the city, where the new car was parking, too. We had to switch the content of the two cars – which exactly looked like as if we were preparing to steal one of them. Then, we had to walk to the office of the mum of my boyfriend, who had another key of the good car, and as the last step switch car keys. Still, after all of this, I had to take care of something else that came up in the last minute. So eventually, we left Salamanca very late; it was already dark outside.

We arrived quite tired and close to midnight to Burgos, but we were looking forward to our holidays to get started.

The hotel

We stayed in a hotel called Hotel Bulevar Burgos, located a 10-minute walk from the city centre. This allowed us to reach most of the tourist attractions easily on foot, without travelling costs. For two nights we payed 90€, which I believe is a good price. The room was small but had everything we needed: huge beds, clean and spacious bathroom, long table with a TV and amazing views of the city. However, I have to complain a little bit too as the floor was very cold and the heating came from above, close to the ceiling, so it took an eternity to heat up the room. Otherwise, our stay was comfortable.

The address: Bonifacio Zamora de Usabel, Edificio 1 A, Burgos, 09001, Spain

About Burgos

In the morning we headed immediately to the Old City in the company of a finally very sunny weather, where we visited some of the most important places: the Plaza Mayor, the Cathedral and the town hall of Burgos. For sure the Plaza Mayor looked nice – better than the one in Zamora – but what we got absolutely impressed by was the vast cathedral. It was built in the 15th-16th century, primarily in a Gothic style but it also contains Renaissance style works. The result is definitely a big fat wow! We could enter a part of the cathedral for free, which was enough to admire the internal architecture as well. Not a surprise that it was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Additionally, just in the doorstep of the cathedral, a Christmas market was waiting for its visitors. Strolling between the rows of paradise (food, drink, chocolate, handmade things) I really felt that everything was in its place.

After taking a little time in the Christmas market while still staring at the cathedral, we continued exploring Burgos and had a walk in the Old City. Some of you might remember how much I fell in love with the narrow streets of Zamora – something similar happened here too. I just adore these colourful houses dressed in Christmas decoration. We also walked along the shore of the Arlanzón river and the sun was still shining bright.

Later on, we climbed up to the Castle of Burgos, which is located 75 m above the city. Although the entrance was closed, we could enjoy a stunning view. It was also really cool that a big compass was gouged on the ground that showed the direction and the distance of some of the most important cities of the world. Unfortunately, for some reason I forgot to take a photo of it. :(

For the night, we returned to the centre, specifically to the surroundings of the Plaza Mayor, to have dinner. As it was very close to Christmas, many different performances were entertaining the crowd. I have to tell you, I don’t see very often so many people in such a relatively small place.

The next day, on Sunday, we were going to leave considerably soon, so we only visited one more place in Burgos: la Cartuja de Miraflores. It is a monastery where a small group of monks is living. It is very interesting that they live isolated from the world, even from one another, and dedicate their lives to praying and contemplating. They barely come out of their rooms and barely talk to each other. If I remember well, they don’t have television, radio or newspaper; nothing that gives them information about what is happening in the world. They are told about the most important news only once per year.

What did we eat and drink?

Unfortunately I cannot remember exact places and prices, but for breakfast we had churros con chocolate – which I am literally in love with – with a coffee. Later on, we tasted some kind of bread typical from Burgos that had chorizo inside with a cup of hot wine at the Christmas market. We also had a sandwich of Morcilla de Burgos, which again is a very typical meat of the city, and is basically a sausage made of pig’s blood and fat, rice, onion and herbs. According to oral tradition, it has to be “sosa, grasosa y picosa”, which translates to English as “salty, fatty and spicy”. No matter how strange it sounds, it was quite good. It is worth to try out! And finally, for dinner, we had croquetas de jamón and huevos rotos (fried potatoes + eggs + ham).

I really enjoyed our visit to Burgos, even if we ended up spending there much less time than I wanted to. The cathedral, the streets, the market and the lights were all making the experience memorable. And for some reason, I had this weird feeling the whole time that I had already known the place. That it was very familiar. Then I realized that Burgos reminded me a lot of Edinburgh. As if Burgos was a smaller, Spanish version of the Scottish capital.

I would love to go back there once!

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