Burgos and Moving Onward

Friday and Saturday, May 19 and 20, 2017--Burgos to Salamanca

What a great day Friday was.  We started the morning walking 3 km into the countryside to visit the Monastery of Milaflores, a beautiful complex that was founded by the French Carthusian Order.

Walking back into town, we toured the Museo de Burgos.  It was the original depository for the findings of all the archaeological digs around Burgos and has some very nice pieces they found earlier.  (Later, the Museum of Human Evolution which we visited Thursday was built because of the great number of objects founds at the area sites.)  But the Museo de Burgos also had paintings by regional artists which were interest.

Across the street from the museum was the Mercado Sur.  We toured through it--another really wonderful city market with lot of stalls and lots of people doing their weekend shopping.

After that, it was another 2 km walk to the edge of town to see another monastery--Santa Maria la Real de Las Huelgas.  We knew it would be closed, but the guidebooks said it was worth seeing mostly for the external beauty.  Also, we went there because the university is nearby, and that is where we walked next. The Universidad de Burgos is mostly housed in an old hospital complex which has thick, stone walls.  The buildings have been remodeled inside while keeping lots of exposed stone.  The exteriors are very nice with lawns and the old stone buildings.  There are also some new buildings scattered around the old campus.  It is a big university with a very attractive campus and a wonderful, big wooded park adjacent to it.

From there, we returned to the center of the city to see the biggest tourist site in Burgos--the Burgos Cathedral, a very large and extremely beautiful church with unbelievably rich decor.  The riches housed within this building are mind-boggling.  Each side chapel would be considered to be a very fancy church on its own.  It took over 2 hours to see it all.  And best of all, an organist was rehearsing while we were there, so we had about an hour-long concert as a part of our tour.  Anyone coming to Spain should try to come to Burgos to see this cathedral.  Just outstanding and must be among the most beautiful and most impressive ones in the world!

Before leaving the area, we dropped into one more church that the books said is a must-see in Burgos, the Iglesia de St. Nicolas next door to the cathedral.  It has an alter that is the most detailed piece of sculpture that I may have ever seen.  It's a bit too busy, but it is amazing to see.  There is also a painting that is interesting showing people being judged to determine whether they should go to heaven or hell.  The people going to hell and what was happening to them was actually more interesting to view.

We walked about 2 km more another direction to eat, then we returned to the room.  But at sunset, we had one more goal--to see the Burgos Castle and the Cathedral lighted at night.  So we headed out for another 4 km round trip to see each of them.  We ended up behind the castle walking up unlighted dirt stairs, but I had my cell phone with a flashlight app.  Otherwise, we might not have made it there.

By the end of the day, we had walked over 20 km (over 12 miles)!
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Today (Saturday), was a travel day.  It was supposed to be a 3 1/2 hour bus trip from Burgos to Salamanca leaving at 10:30 and arriving at 14:00.  As our bus drove through Palencia, it stopped behind cards at a red light.  And when the light changed and the cars went forward, the bus would not go into gear.   Within about 15 minutes, another bus arrived with a few passengers (probably ones that had planned to join our bus at the local station), and they asked us to move to that bus.  However, the doors to the luggage compartments on our bus would not open.  No one wanted to leave without our bags.  One lady was very animated in complaining and insisting that she needed her bag; she looked as if she were about to explode with anger as we watched.  So we sat there for 1 hr. 45 minutes until someone managed to do what was needed to get the luggage doors open.  We arrived in Salamanca at 15:20.
 
We have a room at the Hostel Santel San Marcos which is a hostel in name only.  It is really a small boutique hotel with limited services.  All rooms are private ones, and there are no kitchen facilities.  It's a nice, basic room that is very clean and looks out onto a small square. 

Salamanca is a beautiful city with many of the buildings constructed of a light sandstone that seems to glow under the right lighting conditions such as sunset or external lighting.  It has many  beautiful squares, too.  Apparently the Universidad de Salamanca had commencement today, because all through the city were students dressed up, carrying or wearing a sash with the university's logo, and often accompanied by family.  The whole city was alive with people like the San Antonio River Walk when a large convention is in town. 

We went to an organ concert in the evening at the Salamanca Cathedral.  The organist, German Michael Fuehrer, played two different organs--a very old smaller one, and a larger and newer one from 1744.  The concert was good, but the older organ just seemed unsatisfying.  A number of people left before he ever switched to the newer organ with the fuller sound.  He played for two hours, but three of the pieces were especially pleasing to me--one called Obra de Clarin by Antonio Martin y Coll in which the horns repeated sound patterns out the front and then out the back of the organ, another called Batalha de 6.0 Tom by Pedro de Araujo, and one called Canto Llano de la Inmaculada Concepcion de la Virgen Maria by Correa de Arauxo. 

The center of the city was still very much alive as we walked back to our room.  We sat at Plaza Mayor for a while just to watch people before continuing our return.