Hey all. This weekend was actually pretty fun! For once I stayed in Burgos and didn’t have anyone visiting, and sometimes weekends like that can get kind of dull, especially if it’s cold outside and people don’t end up going out at all. But I stayed because Bea, one of the teachers at my school, invited me to go with her, her boyfriend Raul, and the English assistant from two years ago, Sophie, to visit some pueblos near Burgos. Sophie currently lives in Vitoria, which is about an hour away from Burgos, so she was coming in for the weekend for a little weekend vacation.
We left yesterday morning around noon, when Sophie’s bus got in, and drove directly to Santo Domingo de Silos, a VERY small town about 60 kilometers from Burgos that is famous for its monastery. We arrived just in time to see a mass and hear the monks chant, which apparently they are very famous for. From there we took a quick walk in a nearby park, called La Yecla, which was essentially tall rock formations with a path cut out between them. The day itself was pretty blustery and ominous, with lots of wind and clouds, but we were lucky and only got rained-snowed on once, just as we were leaving La Yecla. (See the pictures below – they’ll be able to describe these places better than my words can!)
From La Yecla, we returned to Santo Domingo for lunch, which was a very yummy combination of pintxos – artichoke hearts with ham, picadillo (chorizo in the form of ground beef), morcilla (Burgos’ very famous blood-sausage), salad, and a very yummy egg scramble with garlic. More than anything, it was nice to be inside outside of the windy, inclement weather.
After lunch, we entered the monastery itself and took a brief tour of the cloisters and the apothecary shop that the monks had been famous for back in the 11th century. It’s apparently one of the best examples of Romanic architecture in Spain, as well as being one of the two monasteries (along with those in San Millan de la Cogolla in La Rioja) that are credited with having the earliest written record of the Spanish language. Little side note: los burgaleses are ridiculously proud of speaking the purest Spanish in the country. But then again, so were the people in La Rioja last year. But anyway, I digress. The cloisters of the monastery are beautiful, and there are still about 20-30 monks who live there full-time. I even saw some of them walking around in sandals – SANDALS!!! I am the absolutely queen of sandals, but even I am not that insane.
After touring the monastery, we drove a little ways to Covarrubias, an adorable little town with these white plaster houses girded by dark brown beams, making them seem very old-fashioned. Haha, “seem old-fashioned” – how American of me! I’m sure they’re actually just OLD. We wandered around Covarrubias for a little while, and then on our way back to Burgos we stopped in a town called Lerma, which was much bigger than Covarrubias and less impressive, but one of the coolest parts of the town was the convent. The nuns at this particular convent make and sell certain candies specific to Lerma, and in order to buy them, you have to go up to a window with a revolving door and basically talk through the door, ask what you want, and then they spin the door around to give you what you’ve requested. You put your money on the door, spin it again, and then they can give you your change. This is all because these particulars nuns have chosen to live completely within the walls of the convent and can’t be seen by anyone from the outside – pretty trippy.
In the evening, we met up with some of Bea and Raul’s friends and went for tapas, which is pretty standard in terms of Spanish evenings, but this particular weekend there is a tapas competition between the various bars because of the Festival of San Lesmes, a saint somehow related to Burgos, that was celebrated today. Each bar had their own special tapa that they had created for this occasion, many yummy things involving cheese and pastry dough and fun combinations of ingredients. SUPER yummy.
Oh goodness, this post is getting very long, but I have to tell you just one more thing. Today was the celebration of San Lesmes, and I have NO idea who that was or why we care. I think one of the church’s here is dedicated to him, so perhaps he is a patron saint of Burgos. There were many people dressed up as people from Castilla y Leon from centuries ago, including traditional dance groups and small children dressed in cute period outfits. But even cooler/weirder were the gigantillos, very large papier-mache people who were “worn” by people and then walked around the plaza, representing the typical Castillian person from years ago, complete with period-specific dress. I have to say, Spain certainly does a good job of the traditional festivals. Maybe we just suck at it because we don’t really have the same depth of tradition in the States that they have here? I have no idea.
NOW. I think I’ve finished. I’m going to attach some photos so you can see what some of these places were like. I hope you enjoy them!
La Yecla
Santo Domingo de Silos
Cloisters of the Monastery
House in Covarrubias
los Gigantillos
Traditional Castillian Dress
