Burgos Castle

I first visited the Castle of Burgos with my father in 1992. I have revisited lots of places on this trip which I had initially visited with my dad, but this was the only one for which I had very strong memories of being there with him. I was actually really sad as I climbed the hill to the Castle, which sits, naturally, at the highest point in the town. When we were there in 1992, the Castle was entirely a ruin. I actually took some pieces of the wall, which I still have at home. So, when I reached the top of the hill and discovered a partially restored Castle and museum, I was snapped out of my depressing state of deja vu.

The Castle now is a very well put together tourist attraction, complete with two reconstructed towers. You can even visit the extensive cave system beneath the Castle, where the garrisons drew their water.

The Castle has an impressive history. It was an Iron Age fort of Iberian people, which, unlike the rest of northern and central Iberia, was never conquered by the Celts. It was abandoned at some point during the Roman period, and not reoccupied again until the tenth century, when the Castillians fortified the hill as a defensive position against Muslim armies marching north to raid their lands.

Burgos is actually a Germanic word, "Burg", meaning town. The town was so-called to differentiate it from the Castle. So the burg which grew up around this military site is Burgos. The town prospered, especially in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as the military frontier with Al-Andalus was pushed southward, and as Burgos became an important stop for pilgrims making their was toward Santiago de Compostela, in the far northwest of the Peninsula.

The Castle was converted into a royal palace, but the city of Burgos gradually lost its important place in royal politics as the attention of the monarchs remained fixated on the south. Eventually the Castle fell into disuse and ruin.

The military function of the place was revived in the early nineteenth century, when the French army made Burgos its headquarters. The Castle was redesigned as a Napoleonic-era fort, complete with extensive batteries and outer-works. It was besieged by General Arthur Wellsley, commander of the British forces in the Peninsula, in October of 1812. The future Lord Wellington (that title had to wait on his final defeat of Napoleon in 1815) had roundly beaten the French by the time he reached Burgos, and they were compelled to surrender after a relatively brief siege. As they left, they decided to blow up the Castle.

So the Castle was ruined again, and remained that way until 2005, when renovations were completed and the new mueseum was opened. It is a neat site, though I am glad I got to see it both as it is and as it was.