Via de la Plata or Camino Mozarabe?

[micbook]

Hi everyone!

I walked the Camino Frances in June-July 2011 and am looking at walking a different route this spring 2012. I wanted to walk the Via de la Plata and now considering the Camino Mozarabe as well. I can start in Cadiz and walk north or start in Malaga (or Granada??) and walk until I merge with the VDLP. Anyone walked both or has insights/suggestions in terms of the differences? I'm flexible with my time and plan to take up to 3 months and possibly walk to Finisterre as well. I also like warm weather so high temperatures are of no concern

Many thanks!
Michal

http://michalrinkevich.wordpress.com/category/camino-de-santiago/

 

[gyro]

Hi everyone!

I walked the Camino Frances in June-July 2011 and am looking at walking a different route this spring 2012. I wanted to walk the Via de la Plata and now considering the Camino Mozarabe as well. I can start in Cadiz and walk north or start in Malaga (or Granada??) and walk until I merge with the VDLP. Anyone walked both or has insights/suggestions in terms of the differences? I'm flexible with my time and plan to take up to 3 months and possibly walk to Finisterre as well. I also like warm weather so high temperatures are of no concern

Many thanks!
Michal

http://michalrinkevich.wordpress.com/category/camino-de-santiago/

Hello Michael,
Well, I walked Seville-Salamanca-Santiago in 2008 and Granada-Cordoba-Merida in 2010.

Seville-Salamanca-Santiago had slightly more folk, the stages were long, but the vast majority of the villages had some facilities. I enjoyed this and made some wonderful friends.
Granada-Cordoba-Merida was much quieter, the first week is a pull through the hills of Northern Andalucia, with long daily stages and a pretty unrelenting landscape. Cordoba is, however, a truly amazing city.

Personally, I would recommend the route from Seville. It is more demanding than the Camino Frances (though I walked that in 1998) but not so much as to demand too much of any pilgrim,
Buen Camino
Gyro

 

[micbook]

Hi Gyro!

Thanks for your reply! Is it because of the demanding path during the first week from Granada that you recommend the route from Seville? How are the waymarks in each route? Would you consider one safer than the other for a woman walking by herself? And, any guidebook you'd recommend (English)? I'd imagine it'll be two different guidebooks for the two routes. Walking the Camino Frances, I loved John Brierley's book, and was disappointed to find out he had no books on the VDLP. BTW, do you think getting along on the VDLP without fluent Spanish is going to be a problem?

Many thanks!
Michal (there's no 'e')

http://michalrinkevich.wordpress.com/category/camino-de-santiago/

 

[peregrina2000]

Hi, Michal,
I haven't walked from Granada to Merida, but it's high on my list. I would love any excuse to return to the Vdlp because it is so beautiful. I did walk the Vdlp from Sevilla as a 59 year old woman alone, and I never had any problem.

Knowing Spanish helps a lot, because in many of the small towns, no one speaks much of anything other than Spanish. But depending on the time of year, you will find more English than Spanish spoken among the pilgrims -- most of the pilgrims on the Vdlp tend to be northern Europeans, and English becomes the common language. I remember meeting some Spanish pilgrims in an albergue in Oliva de Plasencia, along the Vdlp, and they told me they felt like they had left Spain, since meal times at the albergues never included a word of Spanish!

I'm assuming you have seen the recent reports on the Camino Mozarabe by bjorts and Wombat -- if not, you can find them all in this section of the forum: camino-mozarabe/

Tough decision, I think. Buen camino, Laurie

 

[bjorgts]

As Laurie says, you can find my report elsewhere. Just one thing here: If the cost of walking is importent, it will cost you less walking VdlP, because there are albegues. There are almost none on the Mozarabe. Bjorg

 

[gyro]

Hi Gyro!

Thanks for your reply! Is it because of the demanding path during the first week from Granada that you recommend the route from Seville? How are the waymarks in each route? Would you consider one safer than the other for a woman walking by herself? And, any guidebook you'd recommend (English)? I'd imagine it'll be two different guidebooks for the two routes. Walking the Camino Frances, I loved John Brierley's book, and was disappointed to find out he had no books on the VDLP. BTW, do you think getting along on the VDLP without fluent Spanish is going to be a problem?

Many thanks!
Michal (there's no 'e')

http://michalrinkevich.wordpress.com/category/camino-de-santiago/

Dear Michal,

Yes, the walk from Granada to Cordoba is -in my opinion - harder than the first week's walk from Seville. This is one of the reasons I recommend that you try this next.

Waymarking on Granada-Cordoba is a little patchy (compared with every other camino I have walked). The CSJ guide by Alison Raju, plus the Michelin map, were sufficient to get back on track, but I did loose a hour or so some days as I got turned about. The worst day was the third (After Moclin)

Safety: I won't regard either walk as dangerous. There are likely to be more pilgrims (and hopefully more folk looking out for you) on the Seville-Salamanca stretch.

Guidebooks: The CSJ guide (by Alison Raju) as I have mentioned before was pretty good. I did find some Spanish guides online, but didn't print these out.

Spanish: my Spanish is pretty bad, but I could function, more or less, over both of the caminos. There was not many folk who spoke English.....

Happy to discuss this further by PM if you wish
Gyro

 

[micbook]

Thanks so much, everyone! This is very helpful. I decided to go with the VDLP

Is the book by Alison Raju the 2010 edition or has anyone seen a more recent edition? I saw the book a while back when I started reading about VDLP but multiple sites (Amazon included) noted it was out of print. Any suggestions?

Michal

http://michalrinkevich.wordpress.com/category/camino-de-santiago/