Laguardia to Burgos

St James the moor slayer

A short, 12.5 km walk through a forest on a cold windy day. A picnic lunch with all our clothes on and an hour to thaw out afterwards.

A monument at in the forest was to 300 people shot there at the beginning of the civil war in 1936. Burgos was/is a rightwing city and proud of its military traditions. The way Diego explained it to us was that the first republic lasted 3 years but the anarchists and violent communists frightened the older people and the church and some parts of the army. A vicious war, described for us by Hemingway. Somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 people died and fear killed dissension. No-one has the stomach for a truth and reconciliation investigation, so these monuments are erected by relatives. The disappearances of Argentina have had their precedents.

Universal primary education was not compulsory until 1960, and children were needed to support the family. Poverty was endemic and there are very many of the elderly are very small people. Power was, quite evidently, in the hands of the aristocracy and its successors, and the church. We walked through a sizeable town with distribution sheds, machinery maintenance buildings and silos, but almost totally deserted. The town had been bustling in the 1960’s, but everyone had left to work in other European countries.

The slaying of moors by El Cid and St James have been celebrated at Burgos for centuries. 

Burgos cathedral is jaw dropping. The second load of gold and silver from the America’s was brought to the Reyes Catholicos at Burgos by Christopher Columbus and some of it stuck to the carvings in the cathedral. The structure is modified Romanesque, but with innovative perforated skylights over a number of chapels and the crossing. Some wonderful painted medieval statues of stone, giving an idea of how bright, even gaudy, medieval cathedrals were. A wonderful set of steps lead down into the cathedral from the camino on the north. However, they have been closed for many years because the local used it as a shortcut with their sheep and chickens.