Burgos travel guide

Top 10 sights in Burgos

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1. 

   1© José Ligero Loarte · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Burgos Cathedral

   A cathedral begun in 1221 in French High Gothic, whose openwork spires of 1482 and octagonal lantern vault over the crossing are its two great set pieces. El Cid is buried under that vault, and the church was made a World Heritage site in its own right in 1984.

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2. 

   2© Mario Modesto Mata · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Atapuerca

   A group of caves in the Sierra de Atapuerca holding the longest human occupation sequence in Europe, from about 1.4 million years ago onwards, and over three-quarters of the world's known hominin fossils of the Middle Pleistocene. It became a World Heritage site in 2000.

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3. 

   3© Lourdes Cardenal · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas

   A Cistercian nunnery 1.5 kilometres west of Burgos, founded in 1187 as a royal convent, where Edward I of England married Eleanor of Castile in 1254. Its tombs yielded the finest surviving collection of medieval Spanish textiles, including Almohad silks.

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4. 

   4© Ecelan 08:48, 1 December 2007 (UTC) · CC BY 2.5

   Miraflores Charterhouse

   An Isabelline charterhouse three kilometres from Burgos, given to the Carthusians in 1442 by John II of Castile, who had it built from his father's hunting lodge. Gil de Siloé's star-shaped alabaster tomb of the king and queen and his gilded altarpiece are inside.

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5. 

   5© Jtspotau · CC BY 3.0

   Monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña

   A Benedictine monastery ten kilometres from Burgos where El Cid left his wife and daughters when he rode into exile in 1081. His tomb lay here for centuries before moving to the cathedral, and Trappist monks keep the house today.

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   Museum of Human Evolution

   A museum on the south bank of the Arlanzón, opened in 2010, showing the hominin fossils from Atapuerca sixteen kilometres east — including the reconstructed skulls that defined Homo antecessor and the Sima de los Huesos population.

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   Arco de Santa María

   One of the twelve medieval gates of Burgos, rebuilt in the sixteenth century by Charles V in acknowledgement of the city's loyalty during the Comuneros revolt. Its front carries statues of Fernán González, El Cid and the emperor himself.

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   Castle of Burgos

   A castle and alcázar on the hill of San Miguel, seventy-five metres above the city, begun in the ninth century on Visigothic and Roman foundations. Retreating French troops blew it up in 1813, damaging the cathedral's windows; the excavated site and a well shaft are open.

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9. 

   9© Asturkian · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Coliseum Burgos

   An indoor arena in Burgos, formerly the bullring, used now mainly for concerts and conferences. It stands in the newer part of the city and anchored the redevelopment around it.

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10. 

    10© Mario Modesto Mata · CC BY-SA 2.0

    Gran Dolina

    An excavation trench in the Atapuerca complex where hominin fossils about 800,000 years old were found in 1994 and named as a new species, Homo antecessor — at the time the earliest human remains known in western Europe.

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1. 

   1© UtaUtaNapishtim · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Sima de los Huesos

   A shaft in the Atapuerca caves, the pit of bones, holding the remains of at least twenty-eight individuals of about 430,000 years ago, in the Neanderthal lineage but before Homo neanderthalensis. Their concentration in one shaft is argued as the earliest evidence of deliberate disposal of the dead.

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2. 

   2© HCPUNXKID · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Santa Gadea

   A church dedicated to Saint Agatha in Burgos, where tradition holds that El Cid made Alfonso VI swear he had no part in his brother's death — an oath that led to the Cid's exile. The present building is fifteenth-century.

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   Iglesia de San Nicolás de Bari

   A church on the Camino de Santiago behind the cathedral, whose whole east end is filled by a carved stone altarpiece of 1505 by Simón de Colonia — hundreds of figures in limestone, the summit of late Gothic sculpture in Burgos.

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   Convent of Saint Clare

   A convent of enclosed nuns in Burgos at the corner of Calle de Covarrubias, del Progreso and Santa Clara, founded in the medieval period and still in religious use. Its church is open for services rather than as a monument.

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   Church of San Lesmes Abad

   A church on the Plaza de San Juan at the point where the Camino de Santiago enters the walled city, so that it was the first church pilgrims met after the gate. It holds the tomb of Saint Lesmes, the French monk who cared for pilgrims here in the eleventh century.

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   San Gil Abad

   A Gothic church of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries built by the merchant guilds of Burgos, each of whose chapels holds the tombs of the family that paid for it. The Natividad chapel is a piece of late Gothic virtuosity in its own right.

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   Iglesia de San Lorenzo el Real

   A baroque church on Calle Almirante Bonifaz built by the Jesuits in the seventeenth century, elliptical in plan under a dome — a form rare in Burgos. It became a parish church after the order was expelled in 1767.

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   La Merced Church

   A Gothic church begun in 1498 by the Mercedarian order on the bank of the Arlanzón, at the bridge into the old town. Its buildings are now shared with the university, and it is the first church arriving travellers see from the station.

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   Iglesia de San Cosme y San Damián

   A parish church on the left bank of the Arlanzón dedicated to Cosmas and Damian, the physician saints, built in the sixteenth century as Gothic gave way to Renaissance — both styles are legible on the front.

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    Iglesia de Santa María la Real y Antigua de Gamonal

    A Gothic church in the Gamonal district, built in the 14th century over an earlier one raised after Alfonso VI moved the bishop's seat here from ruined Oca in 1075. It has been a protected Bien de Interes Cultural since 1931.

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