Burgos

Burgos is a very old and historic town, with the original castle dating back to 884BC. There were other settlements here even earlier than this.

The weather has been quite cold over the past few days, only reaching 16 degrees, which makes it not much warmer than Melbourne! At least it has been sunny.

We have done lots of walking and exploring of the old city and climbed to the top of the hill where the old castle stands. The tour was only in Spanish, but we got to walk through the underground tunnels that were made to protect the city's water supplies from attack. It was quite amazing to see how they built them and how clever they were. Ella and Angus, you would have loved exploring!

Yesterday we went to the Cathedral, which is the third largest in Spain. It took us almost 2 hours to walk around and see all the different side chapels, carvings and stained glass windows. The architecture and detail of the carvings was quite spectacular. The entire cathedral took 39 years to build, which is apparently a record for being so fast. There have been some additions and modifications made over time.

Burgos is a beautiful town, so we enjoyed walking around and looking at the sights. Our hotel was just next to the cathedral, so we were very central to everything. We found a food market to look at and bought some local food, including morcilla chips (pronounced mor-thee-yah), made out of blood sausage! We can't wait to try them. Burgos is known for its morcilla and makes a few different types.

In our travels we came across a food store/restaurant that dry ages its beef in a glass cabinet. It looked amazing, so we booked in for dinner. The 1.8kg piece of steak on the bone was cooked over a charcoal grill and then sliced and served on a platter. We had it with some fresh tomato and roasted capsicum. It was one of the best steaks mummy and daddy have ever had! You would have loved it too.

We are definitely enjoying all the beautiful food and wine we've been eating.

Today we catch the train to Madrid for our last 6 days. The weather is meant to be hot again, so we're looking forward to finally having some good weather and going swimming!