One day in Spain…
A post without photos for once – or maybe with just a few. Mainly this post is for my own thoughts, and because I have come across something I find really fascinating. I’ve spent a lot of this walk wondering what on earth I was going to write about in another book. After all, the Sahara it isn’t, and much of the camino has been a solitary ramble with my head buried in Roman ruins. Much as that fascinates me and ...
Salamanca
There is a frog built into the plateresque facade of Salamanca University. It seems a rather frivolous thing to adorn Spain's first University, and the third in Western Europe, but it also one of Salamanca's favourite tourist attractions: even in the very wet, cold weather we have been enjoying this week, at any given time a number of camera wielding frog-spotters can be found, squinting up at the elaborate carvings, trying to pick out the elusive little fellow, who is ...
Semana Santa Caceres
Palm Sunday began in Caceres under a slate grey sky, with men dressed as Roman centurions before midday this morning. It is nearly ten at night, and I have just left the procession still winding through Caceres’ ancient laneways, drums beating and penitents hauling their crosses. Semana Santa – Holy Week – is a big deal in Spain, and Palm Sunday is one of the first official celebrations. For months now the brass bands have been practicing, the sound of solemn ...
Merida
In 1975, Merida celebrated an anniversary - a 2000 year anniversary - of the city's official foundation by order of the Emperor Augustus. For someone who grew up in a country that acknowledged 200 years of European inhabitation during my own lifetime, it is something of a treat to wander beneath Roman archways, and amongst ancient buildings, that were established two millennia ago. Merida is an historical treasure trove. As I was walking here, reading the background to the area had ...
Villaharta – Alcaracejos
I began writing this post yesterday, then the internet dropped out. Hence you have a couple of paragraphs then today's post..: A lovely short day before the rather longer 38k one tomorrow. The landscape really is noticeably different now, full of scraggy holm oak and rocky scrub. It is so similar to the mountainous regions of southern Australia that often I feel as if I'm at home again, walking up in the hills near my home town. For anyone from Mansfield ...
After Cordoba
I’m sitting in the sun in Cerro Muriano, a small village not far from Cordoba. I got here very early today, as it’s only a few hours hike from the city. Although it was possible to walk further, it would have meant a 36km day – and I’m not in the kind of hurry that means I have to do those distances by choice. I may have been debating with myself until I saw the accommodation – a glorious little ...
Cordoba
Coming to you from Cordoba, where I am overly thrilled to say I got to earlier, in time for my customary delicious long lunch. Which in this case was particularly delicious, as pictured – and as usual, stupidly cheap. So Cordoba made a fine first impression. Which it would want to, given that I walked forty km today to get to it. It isn’t strictly necessary to do the lot in one hit from Castro del Rio – one can detour ...
Alcala la Real – Baena
I entered the province of Córdoba today, which was amusing, given that I only spent a day and a half in the province of Jaén. But what a province Jaén is; take an excerpt from one of the tourist brochures I picked up: over sixty million olive trees, responsible for 20% of the world’s olive oil production; site of three major historical battles (including Bailen, one of the opening sallies of the Spanish against Napoleon which eventually led to the French ...
Granada – Alcala la Real
Wow. Inadequate though the word is, it’s also the only one I can think of in my current, totally knackered, state, to describe the magnificent walk from Granada to Alcala la Real, where this post comes from. Prior to this though was the equally sublime traverse from Durcal up over the Sierra Nevada range, into Granada. It is the highest point I will cross before reaching Santiago, and it was a truly lovely walk along a peaceful mountain track. I would never ...
Guajares Faraguit to Durcal…amazing mountains
The mountains surrounding the Lecrin Valley are glorious, as is the valley itself. The first twenty km of today wound along a peaceful country lane, meandering through olive fields, and eventually down into the rich, well watered valley full of orange and lemon trees heavy with fruit. But at the beginning it was hard to imagine the lush orchards to come. The farming up here is extraordinary. Much of the olive and almond tree crops are old growth trees planted centuries ...
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I 'download' books all the time. Legally. It's called a Kindle, l
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