Burgos

We stayed at the campsite in Burgos at the beginning of our 2024 trip to Spain, which was our first attempt at camping in Spain. Being newbies and with stories of campsites getting rammed over winter, we booked our stay well ahead of time. When we tried to book a return visit this time, just a few days ahead, we hit a brick wall. Various booking agencies said we couldn’t reserve a space and the site’s website didn’t appear to exist. Very worrying. Nonetheless, we departed Astorga and set sail for Burgos.

This journey was much smoother than yesterday’s bumpy ride across British-style potholes and bumps, being largely on autovias (free) and autopistas (toll roads). Because it was smooth, plain sailing it felt quite long though it was a shade less than three hours.

It was plain sailing at least until we hit the northern Burgos bypass when Spanish roadworks threw us yet another curve ball – the exit we needed was closed, as were the roads and roundabout beneath the exit. When the Spanish do roadworks, they really do roadworks, closing large sections all at once. We ended up driving through the middle of Burgos, which really isn’t that bad.

I had the crazy thought that we couldn’t reserve a pitch because the campsite was cut-off and inaccessible. Idiotic, I know but … Happily I was completely wrong and we arrived at a campsite that was less busy than we expected. Many of the pitches were rutted/potholed from spinning wheels in wet conditions earlier in the year but we found a space that was pretty flat and got Frodo settled.

Burgos is at 875m/2850ft above seal level so we were likely to be in for a cool night and early morning. Francine put the overnight heating on and we were fine. We awoke to 8°C outside so it had been a good decision.

We began at Burgos on our first Spanish camping trip in September 2024. Burgos is a city with a very pleasant feel, and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t care to “do” cities. Praise indeed. In 2024 we stumbled across what we thought to be a very enjoyable little tapas bar. We thought we’d try and repeat the experience and wandered the 4½ kms along the river into Burgos on our full day here this time.

Again, in 2024, we found an excellent coffee shop beside the river selling coffees complete with a small croissant and an small orange juice for the princely sum of €1.50. Here it was again doing a roaring trade but at that price, who could wonder at it? We did have to put up with the sound of a municipal hedge trimmer but the sun was out so all was well. We continued into the town.

Francine fancied a squint inside the cathedral so I parked myself at a bar in the square outside while Francine went in. I chose the bar well, it was a rather bland bar but was selling St. Miguell Selecta.

I sipped my beer and Francine eventually reappeared, admitting to having been somewhat underwhelmed by the cathedral. The exterior is quite impressive, however. I bought Francine a glass of vino tinto by way of compensation before we went in search of our tapas bar.

We found our tapas bar but, in truth, it was a bit of a disappointment this time around. We chose morcilla [black pudding], croquetas [croquettes] and langostinos [prawns]. Last year the bar had been busier with more atmosphere, though we had been a month earlier. Also, the tapas had seemed more varied but maybe that was our honeymoon period, being our first time in northern Spain. We also may have had our expectations reset by having enjoyed some excellent pinchos on this year’s escorted tour. It wasn’t bad, just a bit ordinary.

We wandered the 4½ kms back to the campsite to keep Frodo company for the late afternoon.