Day 12: Wednesday 4 September 2013
Distance to Santiago: 534,3 km
As usual, by now, we left early in the morning for Burgos.
The cross is on the hill outside Atapuerca. Emotions overwhelmed me while standing there just before sunrise.
Burgos Cathedral (Catedral de Santa María; Catedral de Burgos) is a Gothic cathedral in northern Spain. It is notable for its vast size, magnificent Gothic architecture and unique history. Burgos Cathedral is added to the World Heritage List in 1984 and is one of Spain’s best cathedrals.
Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (circa 1043–1099) was a Castilian nobleman and military leader in medieval Spain. He was called El Cid (the Lord) by the Moors and El Campeador (the Champion) by Christians. He is the national hero of Spain. He was born in Vivar del Cid, a town near the city of Burgos. Born a member of the minor nobility, El Cid was brought up at the court of the Spanish Emperor Ferdinand the Great. He became famous for his military prowess and helped enlarge Castilian territory at the expense of the Muslims.
We stayed in Hotel Cordon. It was so nice to have your own bedroom, bathroom, TV and most of all, privacy. We could sleep in pyjamas, instead of day clothes and we do not need to listen to snoring and other disturbing noises as in a communal dormitory.
We were looking forward to cycle the next few days. Our prebooked bicycles were already delivered. We had to attach the front wheels and the pedals. We encountered difficulties in doing this because one of the pedal’s threads was stripped, we also did not trust our abilities to assemble the front wheels correctly. We took the bicycles to a bicycle shop but he could only help us the next morning. We decided that we will carry our almost empty backpacks on our backs and pack all our stuff in the bicycle carry bags.
We walked 20 km for the day.
