Tag: Spain

Camino Mozarabe

In our Hearts

Our Wanderlust 2 Comments

In our Hearts is Anna’s successful entry in the 2021 competition, 100 Caminos 100 Stories.

In 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, the Chilean Friends of the Camino established a 100-word story competition to keep the spirit of the Camino alive and to lift the spirits of walkers around the globe. Anna’s entry Josef and the Silver Way was highly commended.

The competition was so successful that the Friends decided to run it again. Anna’s In our Hearts was selected for publication from the more than 600 entries received. 

In our hearts tells the story of an enduring friendship made on the Camino Mozarabe.

Read More
A pilgrim approaching the hill town of Magacela on the Camino Mozarabe

Camino Mozarábe, Spain. Part 3: Córdoba to Mérida

Our Wanderlust 4 Comments

Three hundred and seventy plus kilometres from Almería to Córdoba on the fabled Camino Mozarábe. An injury. A rest day in Córdoba. Uncertainty in the air as we set out on the final stage of the journey to Mérida, the old Roman capital.

Córdoba to Mérida (246 km)

A singular woman in a bright red flamenco dress walks home from a late-night gig through the quiet, early morning streets of Córdoba. We catch a suburban bus bustling with Sunday hikers a few kilometres up through the forested hills to Cerro Muriano to lessen the impact of today’s long-distance on Michael’s injured tendon.  Read More

Close up of red/white striped arches of the Mezquita in Córdoba

Camino Mozarábe, Spain. Part 2: Granada to Córdoba

Our Wanderlust 1 Comment

Two hundred plus kilometres from Almería to Granada on the fabled Camino Mozarábe. An afternoon in Granada; a visit to the Alhambra, the sultan’s heavenly palace and the gardens of the Generalife. Built on the ruins of a Roman fortress in the 13th century by the Nazari dynasty (the last Arab Caliphate in Iberia) its architecture, its blue, red and golden interiors, its courtyards of roses and orange trees, its fountains and its history of political and romantic intrigue are beguiling.
Read More

Floodlit Alhambra at night with moon.

Camino Mozárabe, Spain. Part 1: Almería to Granada

Our Wanderlust 9 Comments

Travelling south to Almería (the start of our Camino Mozárabe) through provinces ruled by the Moors for 800 years. The landscape a dream. Windmills for tilting at, iconic black bulls silhouetted against the bright sky, stunted vines growing in the parched earth, trees white with blossom. The rugged, snow-covered peaks of the Sierra Nevada. A shimmer of yellow wildflowers in the valley below. Tall slender poplars, bare of leaves. Islamic forts, cave dwellings, forsaken adobe villages and stations where the train no longer stops. Afternoon winds laden with red dust from the Sahara, making the skies hazy and the horizon blurred.

Read More

Silhouette of walkers on the Camino Portugues

Camino Portugues

Our Wanderlust 2 Comments

September 2014

Sign with yellow arrow and text 'Here Begins The Way'On a warm hazy afternoon, we met our French friends, Jean and Marie-José, on the steps of the Lisbon Cathedral, procured our pilgrim credentials and set out to walk the Camino Portugues.

This is our third Camino. In 2005 we walked the 750 km Camino Françes from St Jean Pied du Port on the French side of the Pyrenees, across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. Three years later we walked the Via de la Plata, a 1,000 km journey from Seville in the south of Spain to Santiago de Compostela. It was on this walk that we met and fell in with Jean and Marie-José, our affection for each other and ‘the way’ triumphing over our limited grasp of French. We last saw them in 2010 when we spent a few idyllic days in their village of Saint-Thomè in the wild and beautiful Ardèche. Now we are together again, to walk the 650 km Camino Portugues from Lisbon, through Portugal and into northern Spain, hugging the coastline where we can and avoiding the more travelled inland route.

Read More

A pilgrim and the sweeping vista of the meseta

Camino Francés, Spain

Our Wanderlust 10 Comments

In the autumn of 2005, inspired by our friend Robert’s stories of walking the Camino Francés and in need of respite from the clamour of our lives, we walked out of St Jean Pied de Port on an 800-kilometre pilgrimage to the holy city of Santiago de Compostela.

A candle, lit in the cathedral in Santiago; a hand placed on the same marble column that pilgrims have placed their hand on for centuries; a relic, a piece of the true cross (plastic or otherwise); and that we travel well together. These were the entreaties from friends we carried with us as we walked across northern Spain. What follows are notes from our diary of 30 extraordinary days on the Camino Francés (literally, the Camino from France).

Read More