When the idea of doing a sabbatical/semester abroad first entered our heads, Spain was not one of the places we envisioned ourselves spending that time. I don’t think I had anything against Spain, necessarily, but given the fact that I speak French fluently, it was much easier to picture us ending up in some francophone locale. Back when my wife and I took our first part-way-across-Europe trip during the summer of 2019, we both really fell “in love,” so to speak, with Belgium and The Netherlands. So much so, in fact, that I started to do what I could to teach myself how to speak Dutch. Therefore, ending up in France, Belgium, or The Netherlands seemed most likely.
As I studied French in high school and throughout college (and beyond), I also studied several aspects of French history, art, architecture, politics, and lots of other French-language-related tidbits. One of my favorite parts of this was seeing the many, many examples of beautiful, majestic French architecture, especially the famous Gothic cathedrals.1 This is why I insisted that we go to the tiny town of Chartres when we were in France in 2019, despite the fact that it was a little inconvenient (requiring that we rent a car, among other things).
When the opportunity to “change our plans” presented itself, I started reading and learning about Spanish culture, history, geography, and other Spain-related things as a way to prepare a bit for our time en España. Of course, Spain has been around for a long time, and it has a long, complex history; the eight months I had to prepare weren’t nearly enough to go over anything resembling “all” of it. But, since I was already pretty interested in architecture and since my sabbatical project was tangentially connected to the art form, I was a bit more attentive to examples of “Gothic” Spanish architecture.
The words we use to describe things (words like “gothic,” “renaissance,” etc.) can mean different things, depending on the context and rigidity of the definitions. Thus, to say “Spanish” and “gothic” in the same description could, depending on lots of things, be a bit of a misnomer.
To be fair, I actually don’t know that much about architecture. I maybe shouldn’t even be talking about it in any sort of “authoritative” voice. I am just a “fan,” so to speak, and I loved learning the bits about it that I did in my French language and history classes throughout high school and college.
“French Gothic” in Spain
All of this was the long way of saying that I read a bit about some of Spain’s most important architectural sites, and one church came up over and over again: Cathedral of Saint Mary of Burgos. This, I read, was Spain’s most prominent example of what most of us think of when we picture a “gothic” cathedral. To put it one way, the cathedral in Burgos is the “Frenchest” of Spain’s gothic cathedrals.
Burgos’s cathedral does bear a pretty striking resemblance to some of France’s more famous gothic cathedrals. It is especially “flamboyant.”
So, with all of the traveling I hoped we would do during our stay in Spain, I had the Burgos Cathedral on my list of “must” sees. This seemed an especially safe thing to add to the “must” list since, at least on a map, it looked like Burgos wasn’t incredibly far away from Santander.
A Visit to Madrid
We had an influx of visitors (both my wife’s parents and my mom) a the beginning of November, and we decided to drive to Madrid as part of their visits. We arranged to have my mom fly into Madrid, so among other things, this trip was to meet up with her, there.
And, of course, Burgos is right on the way between Santander and Madrid (or is, at the very least, not very far out of the way). So, I made sure we stopped.
We were not disappointed. My wife even mentioned that she thought the Burgos Cathedral seemed like it might be the biggest and most impressive we’ve visited.2Check out the photos, below! I did my best to capture the majesty of it all, but, my crappy photography skills and an iPhone camera can only do so much.
A Total Solar Eclipse in 2026
When the total solar eclipse made its way across the US earlier this year, I got a little curious about when/where the next one would happen. And, it turns out, there will be a total solar eclipse traveling straight across Spain in 2026, with “the path of totality” passing right through Burgos. We are in the early stages of planning a trip to see Burgos (again) and the solar eclipse (for the first time)!