Trip to Burgos

On Sunday I went to Burgos, one of the most important cities in northern Castilla. I had intended this to be part of my grand tour of the north, but was thwarted, as I mentioned earlier, by a sudden run on rental cars. So I had to resort to the train.

Despite buying my ticket on Saturday, I was unable to secure a seat on the high-speed line to Burgos, and so had to settle for the Regional Express. It was supposed take four hours to travel the 300 or so kilometers between Madrid and Burgos, but the train actually got there about thirty minutes late.

My time in Burgos was quite pleasant, and will be discussed in detail in subsequent posts. Unfortunately, my travel difficulties continued. My Rick Steve’s guide said that the Burgos train station was very close to the center of the city. I thought this was odd, as my earlier taxi-ride to the Monastery of Las Huelgas took some time. I decided, while walking to the train station, that the driver must have taken advantage of my ignorance of the city’s geography to get a larger fare.

It was at that point that I arrived at the train station, which had been closed and abandoned since 2005. I looked around, figuring that the new station must be very close by, since my brand new 2009 Rick Steve’s could not possibly have made such a critical mistake. Unfortunately, all I could see were empty streets and abandoned warehouses, and the 25 minutes until my train departed for Madrid slowly ticking away. Luckily a man on a bike happened to pass by, and noticed my confused look. He informed me that I needed to get to the new station, about 5 miles away on the other side of town. I ran to the nearest busy street, and stumbled upon a taxi right away. The driver laughed at me, but drove like a madman to ensure that I got to the correct train station on time.

My return trip was on a “Talgo” train, which must have been a high-end Renfe vehicle in 1990 or so. This weird, old, slow diesel train took me on a direct trip to Madrid, with no stops. Somehow, unfortunately, it took nearly as long as my outward-bound trip, which made nearly a dozen stops. For some reason the old Talgo could not seem to make much more than 60 miles per hour, and was far too often going far too much slower than that. In total, I was on the train for eight hours for only seven hours in Burgos.