Burgos y León

            Alcalá de Henares the birthplace of the novel.  Miguel de Cervantes was born and lived most of his life in   Alcalá de Henares and he is the author of Don Quijote, the first novel in history.  Hence, below I have a picture of me outside of Cervantes’ house between the sculptures of Don Quijote and his side kick Sancho Pansa.

Sancho Pansa y Don Quijote

Spanish Version of Home Depot

            Last week Spain had a few holidays celebrating a form of labor day similar to the one that we celebrate in the United States.  Therefore we did not have any classes and had the amazing opportunity to go to Burgos and then León from Monday to Wednesday.  On our drive to Burgos we stopped at a small castle called El Castillo de Peñaranda de Duero.  It was simple and very old, set up on a hill, similar to what we would think of a mansion or manor rather than a castle.  It over looked the tiniest and quietest little town.  But we enjoyed seeing it and exploring around like always!                

The really is about the size of the town

After we had our fill of the little castle, we went down the road a little further to the town of Santo Domingo de Silos.  Another small, quiet, and absolutely beautiful town!  We ate lunch and just enjoyed being out in the sunshine, though it was a little chilly and windy.  Then once lunch was over we went into the La Iglesia Monástica San Sabastián and listened to the monks do Gregorian chants in Latin.  It sounded very very good.  It honestly reminded me of some of the Hebrew hymns I have heard sung by the BYU Men’s Choir or similarly done by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  It is so impressive to me, how well you can feel the spirit in these chapels and cathedrals.  We should never think that just because other churches may not have all of the truth that does not mean that they do not have any truth.  As a side note, these monks recorded an album with their chants and it was a top seller for two years, so we got the real deal being able to listen to them.  After wards we did some walking around and actually a little hiking near the city.  It was all so gorgeous!

La ciudad de Santo Domingo de Silos

Nature is awesome!

Our last stop before actually getting to Burgos was another small town called Covarrubias.  There we got to go into an a cathedral that had some amazing relics behind the chapel.  We went on a special tour and the tour guide, a giddy old man from Burgos, explained to us all the amazing things we were seeing back there including a gravestone almost perfectly preserved from the first century!  You could read all of the writing and it was very cool!  He showed us all kinds of books, paintings, dolls, old priest clothing, and the best were the nativities and statues of Christ some dating back to the fourteenth century!

Gorgeous Nativity!

My room mate Michael, Me, Katie W., Chantelle

            Well we finally got to Burgos, a larger city with a river cutting it in two.  We checked in to a real fancy hotel, and split up into groups to go out and eat dinner and explore.  A few friends and I went and got Kabab’s which are pretty much the equivalent of and Arby’s roast beef sandwich except made with freshly roasted lamb or chicken.  We stayed up and played Phase 10 for a few hours and were all very exhausted by the time we went to bed.  The next morning I got up early and went for a run along the river and had the blessing of seeing the sun come up over the mountains.  Has to be on my “top ten best things I have ever seen” list.  Incredible, and to think that Heavenly Father has the power to create that again and again and again, “worlds without number.”  I just love the connections that I find with eternity.  We had a fantastic complimentary breakfast and we were off to go see the Burgos Cathedral (Roman Catholic) built in a Gothic-style.  This cathedral is known for its vast size and incredible architecture.  So many columns and vaulted ceilings and railings, and moldings and sculptures built into the walls, turrets, stained glass windows, gold, silver, and star shapes, it was just amazing.  They had a series of sculptures depicting the last days of Christ’s life that were so detailed they could have been photographs carved into rock.  It was an incredible cathedral. 

Eating Kababs, Jordan, Noel, Julia, Josh, Katie F

Burgos Cathedral

This is a vaulted ceiling!

Wall carving of Christ carrying the cross

We were privileged to see some of the true Spanish culture and architecture in Burgos.  It was a bigger city, but still represented the very basic culture of Spain in a way that I cannot describe well in words.  You just need to be there and see it and feel it to know what I mean.  The colors, the stone roads and walkways, the people, and other little aspects that just make this city so Spain. 

              That afternoon we were on our way again, this time to León.  We stopped at another small town to see another type of cathedral.

                We left and got to León, another larger city, and checked in, and went out to explore the city!  It is a very pretty city and very busy.  We walked up to the Cathedral of León, which has the largest amount of stained glass per size of building in the world!  And what was so amazing was how each pain of glass told a story and explained gospel principles!  It was so interesting and incredible to even think how much time it had taken to create them!  Carved into the rock on the exterior of the cathedral they had the nativity scene and the birth of the Virgin Mary as well as other famous bible stories.  We stayed up late seeing the town and playing frisbee and went back that night to see the cathedral all lit up with the beauty of the stained glass showing from the light within.  Very good experiences.

Light from within

Before the end of the day we traveled to a small town called Coca.  We visited a castle there that we also were able to take a tour of and learn of why it was built and how it was used etc.  Today it is actually a boarding school, and has been restored extraordinarily well considering its age.  Something to note is that all of the spiral staircases were very narrow.  The castle was built for defense, and so any one soldier at the top of the stairs could easily stop a single file line of enemy troops trying to climb up.  All they had to do was give a shove and they all come dominoing down the stairs!  They had some smart engineers!

By the end of these three days and two nights of excursions I was very exhausted!  I slept quite a bit on the bus ride home!  But that isn’t the end of my week off of school!  We got home that night, ate dinner, unpacked and repacked and headed back to Madrid by the eleven o’clock train to catch our one o’clock bus ride to Barcelona!  I will save the details of that trip for its own page.