April 22, 2014

This is one of those days where getting on the bikes is not very appealing, but neither is staying where we are.  It is so cold we can see our breath – and that’s inside the room!  Everything was saturated when we arrived last night so we had stuff hanging all around the room hoping that it would dry out overnight – it didn’t.  Everything just became uniformly damp.  At least we do have a dry set of cycling shorts and tops in the panniers, but our shoes, gloves and helmets are still soaking wet. Yuk!

It is not actually raining as we start out, but looks as though it will at any moment. We have reassessed our route for the day and decided to shorten it using the main road rather than a winding back road.  Once we’re pedalling we warm up a bit and make good time.  The road is very busy with lots of lorries, but at least it gives us a fast run and it even looks like we may beat the rain.  We meet a fellow cycle tourist during our mid-morning coffee stop.  He is from Southern Germany and has cycled from Cadiz on the southern coast of Spain northwards along the Via de la Plata, which is the route we cycled last year, and now is going from west to east along the Camino de Santiago.  We had plenty to talk about – he too was heading for Burgos hoping to spend a day or two waiting for better weather.

When we arrive in Burgos we spend a fair amount of time pushing the bikes around looking for a reasonably priced hotel/hostal.  It is a very attractive city with lots of tourists around meaning that the hotel prices in general were more than we wanted to pay.  We eventually find one away from the historic centre which turns out to be good value for money, with good rooms, a cafeteria, WiFi and heating (joy!). We had intended to be camping during this part of the trip as there are camp-sites available in this more touristy area, however, it is just too cold.  It means that the budget is being hit a bit hard, but we hope that we’ll be able to balance it up a bit later in the trip by camping most of the time in Germany (weather permitting). 

After washing all the damp kit  and having a general tidy up, we go for a walk around the city.  There are plenty of things to see which is good as we intend to stay an extra day.  We also spotted a Decathlon on the outskirts as we arrived so we’ll probably try to find it again tomorrow so I can get some new bike shoes.