Marco Topo on the Camino de Santiago through Burgos

Discover Burgos by playing

The urban and economic development of Burgos in the Middle Ages was closely linked to the Camino de Santiago passing through the city centre. Burgos became one of Europe’s most hospitable cities for pilgrims, with more than 30 hospitals at one point. As a result, much of its heritage and even the layout of the city can be explained through the Camino. This Marco Topo adventure in Burgos follows the pilgrimage route through the city, revealing interesting facts about former pilgrims’ hospitals, churches, monasteries, historical figures, promenades and emblematic streets. The game begins in Gamonal, where pilgrims enter the city of Burgos. Here Marco Topo introduces the Church of Santa María la Real y Antigua, better known as La Antigua. The adventure continues in Plaza de San Juan, where a complex devoted to pilgrims once stood just before the entrance to the medieval walled city. The ruins of the Monastery and Hospital of San Juan and the Church of San Lesmes are important traces of that period. Marco Topo stops at the Arch of San Juan, where the French Way entered the city, and then follows Calle San Juan, Calle Avellanos and Calle Fernán González, all marked with scallop shells indicating the direction of the Camino. Marco and his sister Marta, dressed as pilgrims, visit emblematic places along these streets such as the Church of San Gil, Casa de los Cubos, the Church of San Nicolás de Bari and the Pellejería, Coronería and Sarmental doorways of the magnificent Gothic cathedral. Before leaving the medieval walled city through the Arch of San Martín on their route towards Santiago, Marco and Marta pass the Arch of Fernán González, built in memory of the first independent Count of Castile, and the Solar del Cid, traditionally identified as the site of El Cid’s home in Burgos. On Paseo de la Isla beside the River Arlanzón, our travellers cross the historic Malatos Bridge and walk through the Monastery of Santa María la Real de las Huelgas, an important Romanesque monastic complex in the Middle Ages where future kings were knighted, crowned and sometimes buried. The Camino then leads our pilgrims to the Hospital del Rey, once one of the most important pilgrims’ hospitals on the entire route to Santiago and now home to the Faculty of Law of the University of Burgos. The adventure ends at the chapel where Saint Amaro is buried. According to tradition, this French penitent completed the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela and, on his return, settled in Burgos, where he cared for poor sick people and pilgrims arriving at the Hospital del Rey.