This morning we slept in. We had breakfast at the hotel and
then started off again. Our first stop was a monastery in Najera, a town built
right against a red cliff wall. The monastery was very interesting. There were
four palm trees in the cloister (the garden in the middle of monasteries) and a
well in the middle to represent the garden of Eden. This monastery also is
important to the pilgrimage. In the 11th century, so they say, a
Spanish king was looking for his falcon and entered a cave in the red cliffs.
Inside, he saw the figure of Mary with a bell, a bowl of lilies, and a candle.
When he left he decided to build the monastery. The cave is in the back of the
cathedral. You walk through a big door and into a place where the walls turn
into red rock. There is a statue of Mary placed inside the cave. The statue was
made in the 14th century (about 600 years ago).
Then we went to chicken cathedral in Santo Domingo de la
Calzada. The story is that in the 12th century a family was going on
pilgrimage and their son was accused of a crime he didn’t do and was hung. When
the parents came to take his body home they found him hanging from a tree still
talking. They ran to the mayor of the town and asked for their son back. The
mayor didn’t believe them and he said, I will let your son go if my dinner (he
was having chicken) comes back to like. And you know, the chickens did! So now,
in the cathedral there are two chickens in a glass box. They are the
descendants of the chickens in the story. While we were visiting the cathedral,
the chickens were crowing. It was very funny.
We arrived to Burgos before dinner. This is a big city with
a huge cathedral in the middle. We will visit it tomorrow.
We did see a very special building. In 1497 King Ferdinand
and Queen Isabel welcomed Christopher Columbus back from the New World. This is
the VERY BIG door to that building.
I am going to sleep really well tonight. Goodbye.
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