Day 05: Saint-Jean-de-Luz (France) – Burgos (Spain)

We have breakfast in the sun, even though the ground is completely muddy and you end up carrying around big clumps of dirt under your shoes. The night was damp and cold, but the surfers were already up before us, waiting for the perfect wave…

We’ve decided on Burgos as our destination for today—the weather in Bilbao is poor :-(

On the way, we have a good lunch stop in Vitoria-Gasteiz. We find a parking area on Google Maps about 20 minutes from the city center; it was crucial for us to find an open-air lot rather than a parking garage—Becky wouldn’t fit in one of those!

A quick check: white lines mean free, usually unlimited parking. Blue lines indicate paid parking, often with a time limit. This spot is marked in green, which is primarily for residents—but since there’s a payment machine, visitors can park here for a fee. The two-hour time limit (not explicitly stated here, but implied) should be plenty for us. A real perk of the digital age: you can handle it all via the EasyPark app.

We enjoyed our first tapas—explained to us in delightful, exhaustive detail—accompanied by non-alcoholic beers (the 0.0% options in Spain are genuinely good).

Today’s drive took us through mountains, past a massive industrial complex near Miranda de Ebro—complete with a historic railway junction—and across vast agricultural landscapes.

Camping Fuentes Blancas in Burgos is located just outside the city, nestled within a local recreation park. We missed our turn on the way in, which led us—quite by accident—to a hidden gem: the Cartuja de Miraflores. It’s an enchanting, still-active Carthusian monastery, founded in 1442 by King John II of Castile and León.

Interestingly, it’s said that some of the items on display were crafted from the very first gold brought back from the Americas. Perhaps—or perhaps not; some of these artworks seem to have had quite a long and complex journey.

We “earned” our visit to the city and our dinner with a long walk. (about 35–45 minutes) along the riverbank.

We manage to get into the cathedral just before closing time. It’s large and impressive, but overall, it feels cluttered and architecturally confusing—just too much of a good thing. The walk through the city is wonderful, and we stop at *La Quinta del Monje* on Calle San Lorenzo for another round of tapas. Delicious—though the bill is completely impossible to decipher. We point out one item and get a refund, but we’ve almost certainly still overpaid. Trying to untangle the details in a packed place with only two people behind the counter is practically a lost cause, so we just bite the bullet and move on. On the bright side, the wine only cost 2.50 a glass. A few bottles of Ribera Crianza del Duero might just find their way home with us :-)