- DAY 16: Monday 18th October 2021 – Covanera, Spain to Vivar del Cid, Spain
- Distance: 42km
- Elevation gain: 500m
- Accomodation: Hotel Morada del Cid
We continued along the N623 on a very overcast day with drizzle in the air. The road soon started to go uphill again, but the gradient was managable (even for us). We crossed high moorland, pretty much in the clouds. There were a huge number of wind turbines, but the cloud was so low that we could barely see the top of them – the blades turning and occasionally appearing out of the cloud was quite spooky. We went over another mountain pass (with corresponding photo opportunity) but the moorland was so flat that we wouldn’t have known it was a pass without the sign. Eventually we started to loose height and the weather gradually improved. We joined the busier N627 road for a few km which then alarmingly and without any warning became an autoroute heading to Madrid. The sign for prohibited vehicles (such as bikes) to leave at the next exit only appeared a couple of km after the start of the motorway, so were relieved to take the exit ramp and get on a quiet road towards our destination for the day. Just a few km from the end, we reached the small town of Sotopalacias, where we stocked up on supplies at the supermarket, got cash out of the ATM and had a couple of huge, if rather overpriced, pizzas at the Hostal Rio Ubierna. We soon reached Vivar del Cid which was the starting point of the cycle route “Camino del Cid” that we would loosely follow for the next couple of weeks – the whole thing is crazily convoluted, so there were many points where we would abandon it and find our own way. Apparently “El Cid” was a medieval knight and the route visited places connected in some way with his life – Vivar del Cid was his birthplace. Tonight’s hostal was a lovely place, but clearly milked the “El Cid” connection for all that it was worth! The lady running the place gave us maps and guides to the route and a “Vivar del Cid” badge – apparently we could pick up more badges at various points on the route, but we never did manage to find another one!
- DAY 17: Tuesday 19th October 2021 – Vivar del Cid, Spain to Burgos, Spain
- Distance: 13km
- Elevation gain: 80m
- Accomodation: Burgos tourist apartments
We had a very short ride today into the town of Burgos. The route followed the main road for a while (albeit on a great cycle lane along the side) and then some more cycle paths that took us right into the centre of town. It was a fine sunny morning and the centre of Burgos was stunningly beautiful – we were blown away by just how spectacular it was, and couldn’t believe that we had never even heard of the place! We had booked an apartment for 2 nights linked to the tourist information centre, but had to go to the nearby Hotel Via Gotica to pick up the key. We turned up very optomistically about 3 hours before check in time after such a short ride and were pleasantly surprised when they gave us the keycode to the apartment straightaway. They also gave us a map which was a satellite view of the town to show us the location of the apartment a few hundred metres away. After successfully navigating hundreds of km by bike, it took us an embarrasingly long time to locate the place, with us even entering the keycode into a couple of random buildings before we actually found it! We then went for a wander around the beautiful old town of Burgos on a glorious sunny afternoon.
- DAY 18: Wednesday 20th October 2021 – Rest day in Burgos, Spain
- Distance: 0
- Elevation gain: 0
- Accomodation: Burgos tourist apartments
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