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.
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| Sancho Pansa y Don Quijote |
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| 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!
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| 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!
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| La ciudad de Santo Domingo de Silos |
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| 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!
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| Gorgeous Nativity! |
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| 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.
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| Eating Kababs, Jordan, Noel, Julia, Josh, Katie F |
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| Burgos Cathedral |
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| This is a vaulted ceiling! |
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| 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.
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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.
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