San Sebastian and Burgos

We left Lourdes on the motorway heading for Spain. France is the land of tollways. Every motorway we used charged. It looks like they charge by distance as there was no indication of how much.

San Sebastián was our first stop. It is a pleasant town on the coast. The Spaniards appear to favour high rise living but the apartment blocks are reasonably attractive. The town centre is quite clean and well laid out. You would never guess that Spain is going down the gurgler.

San Sebastian is set on the mouth of the river Urumea and the Atlantic Ocean. They even had surf… of sorts. The major building is the old cathedral. It was very crowded in the street outside and there was a mass underway inside. It was Sunday after all.

The old centre was very pleasant to walk through. The streets were marble and smooth. There were some cars but they moved at walking pace and there were no horns in evidence.

In front of the unremarkable town hall is a square that was used as for bull fighting in

times past. The council retained ownership of the house balconies and they were sold to spectators. They still clearly show the “seat” numbers.

After lunch we headed off to Burgos, part way to Madrid. Spain has freeways too and they are also tolled but they have prices on display. If you plan to drive in Spain I suggest you bring your money with you. They are expensive and regular.

The road out of San Sebastian follows the coast for some while until you leave it and turn inland. This is incredible. The road passes through a mountain range and is a combination of tunnels and bridges. There is no way such a road would be built in Australia. It would be too expensive for the politicians.

Burgos seems to exist for one reason – tourism to the cathedral. We actually visited two. The first was a chapel

with an extraordinary altar and historical displays underneath. On the other side of town is the cathedral. It is the biggest I have seen outside Rome. It has 38 Altars,

each elaborately detailed. My only issue was that they were very dusty. There is a Chinese professor of languages in the group and he organised for the guide to give him and me our own commentary in English. It made all the difference. Many of the chapels have Moorish influence showing 8 point decorations in the ceilings. Here we learned that San Diego (St Joseph) (Santiago) is often depicted in Spain on a horse slaying Moslems.

Here we saw the grave of El Cid, a Castilian nobleman, military leader, and diplomat and his wife. It forms part of the floor but is roped off.

We have found out why there are so many pilgrims around. The world Catholic youth festival (JMJ) starts in Madrid tomorrow. Guess where we will be tomorrow? We met an Australian from a group of pilgrims. He said it was only a small group – 30. He said there are 3,000 Aussies coming all up.

Dinner in the hotel was interesting. Anna and I were amongst the last to enter the room. They had messed up and 9 of us did not have seating. Surprisingly the food was plentiful and good. Our first paella (also our last). Wine was 5 Euros a bottle and quite drinkable.