DEAR DIARY: BURGOS 1977
[Cut me some slack! I was young, half-baked, and couldn't sit still for a minute....]
July 13, 1977
[By train from Lourdes, France, via Irun]
Burgos station finally came at about 6:30 PM. Damned if I could find a reasonable hotel room! I ended up at the Hostal Cordon, in the Casa del Cordon, where Ferdinand and Isabella received Columbus after his voyage of discovery. Far Out! Historic! But shabby. Cheap. Sigh.
I wandered through the town from, oh, 8 to 10:30 PM. Noisy! It reminds me of Mexico City [where I grew up] in every respect! Absolutely! Old buildings here look like old buildings there. New buildings, ditto. A small river cuts the town in two, and alongside is a beautiful gardened walkway, the “Espolon”. People thronged it, with an amazingly large number of soldiers, Guardia Civil, priests, and nuns….
No tourists! I looked at the site of El Cid’s home, blah!, at the imposing medieval City Gate, and at the Plaza Major. The backstreets, dirty and poor looking, all made me think of my childhood. Tomorrow before I leave I will visit the Gothic cathedral (by 8:30 PM it had closed). I’d also like to visit the two famous monasteries – Las Huelgas and Miraflores – but may not have time.
So -- here I sit with a tin of atun and a bottle of cheap Navarra wine, 12:05 AM. Long day. I’m depressed. I hated to leave Lourdes. I may have a blister starting. My cold room is overpriced. And I have been unable to see as much of Burgos as I had hoped.
July 14, 1977
Weather continues good. I’ve decided that visiting Burgos is a good way to get acclimated to Spain – aside from the fact that it makes a convenient stopping place. It is famously a very, very Spanish town – it was Gen. Franco’s seat of government till Madrid fell, and proud Castilian conservatism still seems the order of the day….
Up at 7:30, the lousy landlady didn’t show up to unlock the door till 8:15. Sheesh!
The first thing I did was hike up the tricky path rising behind the old part of town to where I could get a fine vista from the ruins of the ancient castle. Then I worked my way back down to the great Gothic cathedral, where I gawked for a few hours. Too late for morning Mass.
The cathedral just didn’t catch my fancy, although it made me think of the national cathedral in Mexico City [where I grew up]. It’s vast, with a closed-off choir and high altar, and many side chapels. We Anglicans don’t do side chapels…. El Cid and his wife lie entombed here. And the stained glass and the carved stone work are the finest I’ve yet seen. Still, I didn’t get into it. It seemed – well, I couldn’t help thinking of Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame – ‘medieval’, in the worst sense…. I’ve never really understood Gothic anyway; Romanesque always struck me as cleaner, nobler, as the best that Western Man could offer.
Surprisingly few tourists here! And no tourist traps! Really very quiet, run down….
After late breakfast I paid the hotel bill, dropped my bag at the station and hiked south of the old town for about 1 or 2 kilometers to the monastery of Las Huelgas. Not many people may have heard of it, but I sure had. Founded about AD 1200 Las Huelgas was for 600 years the most powerful and important convent in Spain.
A little old guide lady led a Spanish-only group tour at 11 AM, which I took. And I absolutely fell in love with the place, and not just because it reminded me of Mexico. Las Huelgas contains numerous royal Castilian tombs including Alfonso VIII and his queen, Eleanor of England, plus poor Dona Ana de Austria. Even better, it has four banners captured at Lepanto, AD 1571, and – the top prize! – a Moorish pendant taken by the Castilian knights when they crushed the Moors at Las Navas in AD 1212. The very stuff of history!
Back at the station I found that that the PM train I wanted to take to Leon was full up. Full up! Honest to God! This had me worried for a time, but I decided to take the next train to Madrid instead….