It was already dark when we arrived in Burgos, Spain. We left Fatima (Portugal) early in the morning and made a side trip to Salamanca. On the bus I wrote a poem and slept, while the wife took pictures of the countryside with her phone camera.

We spent the first half of the next day exploring the Burgos cathedral, a spectacular Gothic-style construction, begun in the thirteenth and completed in the sixteenth century, in a class of its own, having been declared in itself a World Heritage Site.

It would be pathetic to have just one morning, no matter how stretched, to view and contemplate the riches of the cathedral, but that was all that we had, and, if we were not at the assigned place at the agreed time, the bus would leave without us. Our four or five hours felt like stolen time, and so virtual thieves we grabbed — with our eyes and cameras — whatever we could.

And the loot? First, the “Master of Burgos,” a fourteenth-century statue of the crucified Christ, fitted with human hair and buffalo hide, before which we attended a Holy Mass. Then, the burial site of El Cid (Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar), and the “Papamoscas” or “Flycatcher,” a statue which opened its mouth when the bells rang as the clock struck the hour.

There were innumerable other works of art —rose windows, chapels, statues— but what comes to mind first, if someone mentions Burgos, would be none of the above. Rather it would be a painting of Mary Magdalene, which the bishop, one of our companions, pointed to us.

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By Simeon Dumdum Jr (@Pakigol) to @inquirerdotnet