Burgos

Burgos is a brilliant city with a massive museum and an elaborate cathedral.

The Museum of Human Evolution

We didn’t have time to visit the Museum of Human of Evolution but we did stand in front of it.

Here’s a sculpture just outside it.

Sculpture based on the picture of man evolving from a neanderthal featuring the man but holding hands with a young boy while walking through metal arches, each a silhouette of a figure

We heard that the museum’s great. It’s got lots of archaeological finds from nearby Atapuerca.

Burgos cathedral

We did manage to visit Burgos cathedral but we were a bit intimidated by all the gold leaf and rich mahogany.

There were a lot of things like this:

Massive gold relief in the main chapel of Burgos cathedral

But our favourite thing was probably this:

Mural from Burgos cathedral, we think of the Virgin Mary

The Meseta

Burgos is the start of the Meseta stretch of the Camino.

The Meseta is a plateau in the north of Spain which is high up (between 500 and 900 metres) and flat.

The Camino goes through the northern Meseta, above the Sistema Central range of mountains.

If you turn ‘terrain’ on on Google Maps, you should get a good idea of it:

The Meseta as seen on Google maps which shows how flat it is compared with the surrounding lands

We were told the Meseta was one of the worst bits of the Camino but we’ve enjoyed walking through it.

Close to the clouds

Being at a high altitude means we often saw clouds so close to the ground we almost mistook them for mist.

Here are some pics from one early morning.

Clouds, weaving between the trees on the Meseta

Clouds at ground level on the Meseta, as seen from above

Dry and flat

The bits of the Meseta we’ve seen have mainly been dry and flat farmland. Most of the time, all we saw for miles around were fields and sky. That meant the landscape often looked pretty abstract.

Photo from the Meseta split into two equal sections: deep blue sky and warm yellow field

Photo from the Meseta split into two equal sections: darker blue sky and a warm orange wheat field

Unseen altitude

Sometimes the path climbed up to a higher plateau but it was easy to forget there was anything much below us.

It was only when the path came close to the edge that things popped into view. Approaching Hontillas, we saw nothing for a while, then the town suddenly appeared below us:

Roz walking a long winding path down to Hontillas

Wine caves

A few days into walking through the Meseta, we arrived in Moratinos. Coming into town, we saw a small hill with lots of doorways built into its sides.

Hill with caves built into it for the locals

Each doorway led to a small cave. The caves were made by locals for storing various things including ‘enough wine to meet people’s needs’.

A few have caved in (sorry) but most were OK and still being used.

Door to one of the wine caves

Halfway

A few days ago, we got to the town of Sahagún, which is the ‘geographical halfway point’ of the Camino. We think that means halfway as the crow flies rather than kilometres walked.

It’s marked by a kind of arch, just outside town.

We had some wine as we passed halfway with our friend Sheila.

Tom and Sheila toasting the halfway mark

We also went to the Santuario de la Peregrina, a church in the south of Sahagún, to get an official certificate to prove we made it.

Here’s Tom’s one.

Tom's certificate proving he made it halfway through the Camino

We think that’s a dragon at the top. We’re not sure why it’s there but we like it.