which route to take?

[filly]

Hello,

I have walked from Seville to Caceres this October and plan to continue on 22nd May 2011, taking a plane to Madrid and bus onwards. Anyone planning to walk then.... and any suggestions as to which way to go - I am favouring the Southern route. Definitely not Astroga as I have already walked the Camino. thanks for any comments. Philip

 

[ria]

Hi Philip,
I walked Sevilla-Salamanca in 2010 and Salamanca-Santiago in 2011, through Ourense (the Sanabres, so no Astorga). I liked the whole Plata a lot, although the part Sevilla-Salamanca was the my favorite. The 2nd part is more 'northern Spain': green, nice & mostly hilly, but sometimes with a bit of not too nice weather. Anyway: worth wile.
Good luck in preparing,
ria

 

[Arn]

Philip,

You've walked long distance already, so are you looking for a Camino of many weeks, or just a new walk along the Way? If you want to remain in the South, have you considered the Camino Portuguese?

You can either begin in Lisbon, or Porto and, with the exception of a fairly unexciting walk out of Porto, it's one of the oldest Caminos that fairly follows the Roman roads toward Santiago.

Welcome to the Forum and Buen Camino.

Arn

 

[mmm042]

Hi.

I've done the VDLP via the Camino Sanabres offshoot, which splits at Granja de Moreruela and heads to Santiago via Ourense. It's lovely, and if you do this I'd recommend taking the detour to Oseira when you get to Cea. Very beautiful (mostly on the way down), and the monastery at Oseira is great. Puebla de Sanabria is a great stop along this route, too.

Melanie

 

[peregrina2000]

I'm not exactly sure what you are referring to with "southern route", but maybe you are asking about the split in A Gudina, where you have to choose between going through Verin (the southern route) or Laxa (northern). The two variants meet up in Ourense. Everyone I met at the albergue in A Gudina took the northern route, as did I. So I can't compare, but I can say that the walk I took was very nice. The first day is up in the clouds, well, not really of course, but you sense you are looking down over the moonscape mountains. The next day's walk up to Albergaria is pretty great, and the walk into Ourense is really nice, especially if you take the riverside path (there are instructions on doing that in an earlier post, you have to leave the arrows, but you avoid an ugly industrial park and get to walk next to a very nice river camino-mozarabe-and-via-de-la-plata/topic5483.html, and also camino-mozarabe-and-via-de-la-plata/topic10127.html).

For the Verin vs. Laxa decisin, here are some more opinions: camino-mozarabe-and-via-de-la-plata/topic5165.html

I think Verin avoids the elevation gain, but it then probably also avoids a lot of the nice scenery. I've been to Verin itself and it's not particularly nice, but a km or two out of town there is a nice castle and a parador nearby.

Hope this helps, buen camino!