Dumb Question. No, this probably is one ........

[Robo]

I'm planning to walk the VdlP next time around, maybe 2019 or 20. Depends if I get off my Butt and make a few sales to keep the business going

I was just thinking.............

It would be really cool to start on the Coast. I mean, if I'm going to walk all the way from Sevilla? Why not add a bit?

Is there actually a route? From Cadiz, or Malaga, or ???

I think I would only do it if there was a Camino route as such. I can't handle too much road walking.

Just found this!
Has anyone tried it?
https://www.csj.org.uk/planning-you...tes-in-spain/the-route-from-cadiz-to-sevilla/

It would also be possible to cut out the first 40 kms by taking the ferry across the bay from Cádiz to El Puerto de Santa María.

The idea of starting on the ferry sounds fun. Very 'Pilgrim like'

 

[André Walker]

Hi Robo,

There are couple of options:
- Via Mozárabe, 473 km. from Málaga to Merida + 773 km. to Santiago.
- Via Mozárabe, 645 km. from Almería to Merida + 773 km. to Santiago.
- Via Serrana, 262 km. from La Línea de Concepción (north of Gibraltar) to Seville + 990 km. to Santiago.
- Via Augusta, 188 km. from Cádiz to Seville + 990 km. to Santiago.

The tracks of all of these Caminos can be found on Wikiloc.com.

 

[Robo]

Hi Robo,

There are couple of options:
- Via Mozárabe, 473 km. from Málaga to Merida + 773 km. to Santiago.
- Via Mozárabe, 645 km. from Almería to Merida + 773 km. to Santiago.
- Via Serrana, 262 km. from La Línea de Concepción (north of Gibraltar) to Seville + 990 km. to Santiago.
- Via Augusta, 188 km. from Cádiz to Seville + 990 km. to Santiago.

The tracks of all of these Caminos can be found on Wikiloc.com.

Many thanks @André Walker . I just found the sub forum for the Serrana!

I think I have just discovered where a different 'breed' of Pilgrim hangs out on this Forum

A New World awaits........Some serious planning and reading ahead.......

 

[André Walker]

For planning future camino's: there's plenty of them still to walk!!!

 

[Robo]

And now I've just discovered wikiloc and installed it.
Adventure awaits!
I'll be buying a tent and a walking trailer next

 

[t2andreo]

Consider that a medieval pilgrim WOULD have used a ferry, or a ride in some boat, as there likely were few bridges....

 

[Anniesantiago]

I walked from Malaga. The first part was nice but then it turned into endless groves of olive trees and I got bored

 

[ksam]

it turned into endless groves of olive trees

Ok Annie...there is something wrong with me. I'm sure of it. That sounds perfect to me. Of course I also like walking the Meseta too. ;-) OF course I'm also easily distracted to perhaps thats why I like these kinds of stretches for thinking....SQUIRREL!!

 

[Bradypus]

Did you know that the CSJ have recently published a downloadable PDF guide for the Via Serrana? No fixed charge but they ask for a donation. https://www.csj.org.uk/new-e-guide-to-the-via-serrana-from-gibraltar-to-seville-now-available/

 

[peregrina2000]

Hi Robo, full disclosure—I haven’t walked from Cadiz but forum reports have been pretty negative. I also met a Spanish couple this year somewhere on the Vdlp who had walked that route and really didn’t like it. The Mozárabe, on the other hand....

I started in Almeria this year in mid-April. I was part of the “ mob on the Mozárabe” for a day but then did a long stage and fell out of the mob. Maggie’s blog is a good place to start as well as the Almeria association’s guide. http://www.almeriajacobea.es/ (there's always a link on the top right of that page to the latest version of the guide. It is updated at least once a month to be current with hospitalero phone numbers, etc).

You have two coastal starting points for the Mozárabe, either Málaga or Almería. Málaga is shorter. Maggie has done both.

BadPilgrim is walking now and posting, and there is a good bit of info in the Mozárabe sub-forum. If this alternative appeals to you, you’ll get lots of advice and comments from the forum I think.

 

[Robo]

Did you know that the CSJ have recently published a downloadable PDF guide for the Via Serrana? No fixed charge but they ask for a donation. https://www.csj.org.uk/new-e-guide-to-the-via-serrana-from-gibraltar-to-seville-now-available/

Many thanks.

The Via Serrana, which runs from the southern tip of Spain, through Jimena de la Frontera and Ronda to Seville at the start of the Via de la Plata, is a beautiful and relatively undiscovered new camino route.

So it's a 'new route' ? Which of the routes from the South Coast would be a 'traditional' route? I'd prefer a traditional route if possible. Part of the Camino experience for me is the feeling of treading in the footsteps of past Pilgrims over the ages..

 

[Saint Mike II]

Many thanks @André Walker . I just found the sub forum for the Serrana!

I think I have just discovered where a different 'breed' of Pilgrim hangs out on this Forum

A New World awaits........Some serious planning and reading ahead.......

G'day mate: You have now started me re-thinking my 2019 Camino. I had intended to walk from Porto to Muxia and Santiago as part of my 70th celebrations, but might reconsider if the appropriate walking partner was around. Cheers

 

[Baba John]

Consider that a medieval pilgrim WOULD have used a ferry, or a ride in some boat, as there likely were few bridges....

The medieval pilgrim would have taken an ox cart, horse drawn wagon, canoe (or any other water transport), bus, taxi, plane etc., etc., etc.
We are the only pilgrims that have to walk every km/mile or, feel guilty and defensive about it if we don't.
If you have to walk the Camino, than you have to 'walk' every step.
If you are on a pilgrimage, than you have to get to Santiago and, return from where you started and produce a document substantiating that you succeeded.
How you get there is between 'you and god' (or you and whoever/whatever).

"The purpose of life is the expansion of happiness". MMY

Be happy on your Camino.

Buen Camino

 

[Nanc]

"I'll be buying a tent and a walking trailer next :eek" Hey Robo now you COULD take the rice cooker !

 

[Kiwi-family]

"I'll be buying a tent and a walking trailer next :eek" Hey Robo now you COULD take the rice cooker !

Haha - @Robo YOU might have discounted it, but we clearly haven’t forgotten!

 

[Robo]

"I'll be buying a tent and a walking trailer next :eek" Hey Robo now you COULD take the rice cooker !

With a generator for electricity!
On our stop over in Bangkok at our local supermarket, they had some really nice little rice cookers....

 

[hecate105]

Start in Cadiz - despite all the negative comments (were they on a different Camino..!) it is a lovely route - hardly any hills till Seville, a good way to start IMHO! Also amazing seafood and a beautiful historic city to see b4 u go... Then the sherry in Jerez.... what's not to like!

 

[peregrina2000]

Start in Cadiz - despite all the negative comments (were they on a different Camino..!) it is a lovely route - hardly any hills till Seville, a good way to start IMHO! Also amazing seafood and a beautiful historic city to see b4 u go... Then the sherry in Jerez.... what's not to like!

Happy to hear that report, hecate, I had not heard much positive, so it’s good to hear the different perspective. I guess I will have to put it back on my camino list now! Could you give some more info on stages, accommodations, etc? Thanks!

 

[hecate105]

There is a Camino 'friends' group in Cadiz. Google them -( I'm afraid as I had done the route i deleted my copy) they have a route map on their website and recommendations for accommodation. We camped. There is a 'Camino' marker in 'the street of the pirates'in Cadiz. We stayed at a very nice hostal ( Summer Hostal, Calle Hospital de Mujeres,+34 956 22 07 62 ) There's a ferry across the bay (which saves a busy road walk. ) which was only a couple of euros. This lands at Puerto de Santa Maria where there is a campsite (they do bungalows too info@lasdunascamping.com ) The route has got signposting but you really need a route map too - there are signs missing in important places!! Good for map-reading skills.... We wild-camped all the way to Seville. So i haven't any accommodation advice. Enjoy..

 

[JillGat]

For planning future camino's: there's plenty of them still to walk!!!

I haven't heard anything about that walk from Valencia to Salamanca. Camino Levante.

 

[peregrina2000]

I haven't heard anything about that walk from Valencia to Salamanca. Camino Levante.

Oh, don’t get me started! I walked from Valencia a few years ago (link to blog in my signature). If you like wide open spaces, lots of castles, many very interesting little towns (and the cities of Avila and Toledo), and very few people, you will love this. The first three or four days are all asphalt, very hard on the feet. But interesting — lots of fruit groves, a few little suburbs that have maintained some charm, and then you leave it behind and start crossing the middle of Spain. There are albergues in more than half of the places before the Levante merges with the Sanabrés in Zamora, and from there on it’s all albergues. Accommodation was never a problem, almost always less than 20-25 euros.

I was very lucky, on day 3 or so I met two French men walking. We hit it off, in spite of our troubles communicating, and walked into Santiago together 40 some days later. They frequently took the polideportivo option while I went for the pensión, and we didn´t always walk together, but it would not have been the same camino without them. You know, the kind of people you meet and can immediately feel comfortable walking with without having to resort to the blah blah blah pleasantries, and just enjoy the companionship of the shared footstrike.

The entrance into Toledo, though it comes on a lot of asphalt, is one of the most jaw-dropping of all camino scenes. And there are some gorgeous mountain days between Toledo and Avila. Toledo is quite awesome in and of itself.

The Levante Association has a guide in Spanish and a slightly outdated English version of the guide.

This was the camino where, after more than a decade of walking caminos, I learned that I enjoyed longer distances. I had two choices — stick to my normal 25 km a day and lose my French friends, or suck it up and walk in the 30-38 range. I opted for the company and changed my walking habits in the process.

Anyway, I think this is a really interesting walk, great open plains walking for clearing the mental cobwebs. In springtime it is spectacular. Those bright green fields and bursts of red poppies are burned into my memory.

Jill, if you are considering it, you should look at the sub-forum, because you will find a lot of threads. One of my favorite camino mysteries of all times is played out in the forum as I tried to figure out how we had gone wrong and got lost in a cottonwood forest. But we were miraculously saved by a farmer on a tractor who for some strange reason was chugging through the forest on a Saturday! Thanks for letting me relive some of these memories, it was really a great camino. I would never start much later than early May, though, for the glorious colors of spring.

Ok, enough already! Buen camino, Laurie

 

[J Willhaus]

Robo,
Last winter in Zamora we had three German pilgrim's who started in Gibralter.

 

[André Walker]

I haven't heard anything about that walk from Valencia to Salamanca. Camino Levante.

I don't mean to mess up your mind, but there's plenty camino's you can walk. Just take a look at the map.

 

[André Walker]

I haven't heard anything about that walk from Valencia to Salamanca. Camino Levante.

There's also a forum about the Levante on this site:
https://www.caminodesantiago.me/community/forums/camino-de-levante.55/

 

[johns]

I walked from Malaga. The first part was nice but then it turned into endless groves of olive trees and I got bored

walked from malaga to merida hard work very dull in parts. then on to zamora happy walking then may 2017.