18 September 2019

The pressure was too much! We folded!

There was a fort in Burgos and it was free to enter. Amazing (that it was free, not that it actually was amazing!) .

The views over Burgos were impressive and smack bang centre front was a cathedral. What can a two Aussies do? (The Frenchwoman was made of stronger stuff and went exploring instead!)

The major drawing card for me, was that it was a cathedral on the route of “The Camino de Santiago de Compostella”. We drove along some of the Camino yesterday and saw a few pilgrims trudging their way eastwards toward the Compostella, a very long way away. It looked hot and flat!! Might have cured me of ever wanting to do it!!

Anyway the fort was a little underwhelming although we did find our first Spanish geocache tucked into a little hole in the wall.

The Cathedral, on the other hand, was beautiful. It’s most appealing features being the vaulted ceilings, the stain glass, the staircase and the two story cloisters ( hence the need for the staircase)!

El Cid even liked the cathedral enough to leave his remains there.

Our plan had been to head towards San Sebastián, just south of the French border, but due to the San Sebastián Film Festival taking place on the weekend, accommodation was at a premium. We opted for a far cheaper Airbnb up in the mountains outside.

As a sweetener, we chose to travel, once again, on country roads to view a little village with its own waterfall and summer swimming hole.

The drive was a real treat. Very amazing!!

From mountain views and river valleys, to the locals checking out the comings and goings, it was well worth the extra hours added to our trip. It’s about the journey after all!

The little village of Pedrosa de Tobalina must be a great place to grow up. The waterfall/ swimming hole/ jumping place is right off the Main Street. No traipsing kilometres up creeks, climbing through barbed wire fences, or dodging cow pats! You just take a right beside the local pub, walk 20 meters and ….. jump!!! Kid heaven!!

A little hamlet of Goldaratz was our home for the night. It was so tiny we were almost inducted as life time members after 12 hours of calling it home. It was so pretty. Our host lived next door and offered to cook our dinner!

We accepted and were rewarded with far too much, soup, meat, salad, cheese and bread.

Slept like royalty in our mountain retreat!!