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The Old/Forgotten/Mountain Camino

Rebekah Scott

Camino Busybody
Time of past OR future Camino
Many, various, and continuing.
I am not sure if this is the right place to post this, but it does connect-up with the Frances, so...

I am digging into a camino so old and tough that the Camino Frances was forged as its "new and improved" incarnation! I refer to the "Camino Viejo," the "Old Camino," a Roman road that stretches through the mountains in the north of Pais Vasco, across Burgos, Palencia, and Leon province to join the Frances in Villafranca de Bierzo. It was used by early early pilgrims, before the Cluny Benedictines showed up and the Moors were driven south in the early 11th century. Pilgs who have walked the Camino San Salvador and/or Vadiniense will recognize some of its towns, and certainly the terrain.

It passes through some of the finest Romanesque architecture in the world, tiny remote chapels out on mountainsides and down in dark valleys, (some in caves) built by Christian refugees during the 10th and 11th centuries... sometimes even earlier! Right up my street.

I have found a Pais Vasco group that is working to waymark and map the route -- it is supposedly do-able already via mountain bike. I hope to join them when they resume waymarking from Aguilar de Campoo, a town in the Sierra Palentina north of Moratinos.

Anyone on here done any of this camino, or know more about it? We mentioned it before -- it is best known for its appearance on a Camino desk calendar and coffee mug a couple of years ago. Anyone else wanna try it, Spring or Summer 2012?
 
...and ship it to Santiago for storage. You pick it up once in Santiago. Service offered by Casa Ivar (we use DHL for transportation).
Finest romanesque churches in the world? Walking up and down through the Picos every day? I cannot imagine anything more wonderful, Reb! I am not sure when I'll be able to walk next year, but I'm hoping to start around May 20 -- keep me posted on this. You already know how good I am at painting arrows, so I'd be happy to help out in that endeavor as well.

Laurie

p.s. What is the starting point? I see that it ends in Villafranca, so we'd be back on the moving sidewalk for the way into Santiago. Or can you figure out some creative alternative?
 
A selection of Camino Jewellery
Wow, Sil, that guide is fabulous! How did I miss that? Amazing the info you can find if you just ask!
Dolmens, thermal baths, erotic corbels, and medieval necropoli... oooh. I am SO there.

This is the group I was talking with, they see the Viejo beginning in Bilbao instead of Pamplona: http://elcaminoolvidado.blogspot.com/20 ... amino.html

I kinda like calling it El Olvidado better. ("the forgotten.") More mysterious!

It is hard for me to be away from home for as long as this camino would take, I may have to do it in chunks. (And seeing how the Vad beat me up in July, I wonder how my lungs would hold up in continuous mountain conditions!) Unless someone wants to come and help run the Peaceable for a while... (hint hint) or wants to lend me that mule?
 
Got to wonder what kind of masochist would stick to those peaks and valleys all the way west?

Rebekah Scot 13.01.2010
 
Yes, it´s true... I blabber on in so many places I don´t recognize my own bloviations! Perhaps a kindly moderator can kluge together these two threads?
 
The 2024 Camino guides will be coming out little by little. Here is a collection of the ones that are out so far.
I think we get braver as we get older!! That's why so may people are prepared to sky-dive in their 80's but not in their 40's!!
 
Amen, Sil.

I was more reckless when I was younger, but definitely braver now that I'm older.
 

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