A Roman Camino (Tadarjos-Carrion de los Condes)

[VNwalking]

I put this in the CF sub-forum, but it could as easily be in the subforums for the Camino Viejo or the Via de Bayona/Vasco.

Looking for some quiet and more adventurous days along the Frances? Have a look at this website, which describes the way that follows the route of the old Roman way between Tardajos and Carrion de los Condes. There is also a lot of information about Roman roads from the coast that are now the Camino Vasco Interior, and from Pamplona, now the Camino Viejo.
(If you don't have time for a deep rabbit-hole, don't open this link, or look at the sources at the end....you have been warned...)

Camino a Santiago Vía Aquitania - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre

es.m.wikipedia.org

Has anyone wandered that way? This is news to me...and an enticing possibility for when/if I find myself on the meseta next. I have twice followed part of it along the canal after Fromista, completely unawares.

 

[Isca-camigo]

I think Alan Sykes has walked part of it, he mentioned it in a comment when he he started walking the Camino Viejo after being on the Lana, he used the route you mentioned as part of his transfer across
On the video clips of Alvaro Lazaga when he walks to Potes via Castellano Lebinengo from Palencia in 2019, which is on the Ruta del Besaya thread,he comes across route markers for the Via Aquitaine further up on this route.

 

[VNwalking]

Thanks, @Isca-camigo , and I am lost. I remember his thread but did not connect it to this.
@alansykes , any comments?

 

[Isca-camigo]

Thanks, @Isca-camigo , and I am lost. I remember his thread but did not connect it to this.
@alansykes , any comments?

I followed his Lana blog as well, I have every intention of going back at some point to finish it or restart it with less torturerous footwear. His remark about the VA was thrown in casually somewhere, possibly on the Veijo Camino stages but to an obsessive like me it's akin to divulging the whereabouts of the Holy Grail and anything else just becomes wind through the ears.

 

[alansykes]

Thanks, @Isca-camigo , and I am lost. I remember his thread but did not connect it to this.
@alansykes , any comments?

Hi, I found myself on the Vía Aquitania a couple of years ago not far from Melgar de Fermantal, on my way from Burgos to Aguilar de Campoo on the Olvidado. It was not exciting, but at least you could see the Palencia mountains getting nearer, and I joined the Canal de Castilla near Herrera de Pisuerga (world capital of the crayfish).

If it's genuine Roman roads you're after, I'd say the bit after Baños de Montemayor on the Vía de la Plata is your best bet - real Roman slabs as you head towards the uplands, with regular miliaria almost all the way to Salamanca (which you enter over Trajan's bridge). The Castellano Aragonés is pretty good too - a significant portion following the Vía XXVII between two of the Emperor Augustus' new towns, Zaragosa (Caesaraugusta) and Astorga (Augusta), with occasional Roman fuentes and surviving little bridges (nothing like the one at Mérida (Emerita Augusta), the largest in the Roman Empire). Another Roman road I really liked was on the Olvidado, between Puente Almuhey and Ciñera: not the normal mainly commercial road but an almost entirely military one, put in to help suppress the defiant celtiberian resistance to the occupation (we uplanders have always been a bolshie bunch). Not forgetting the Vía Herculea, which went past Barcelona and Valencia and joined Granada to Córdoba (over the restored remains of the Roman bridge which pigrims on the Mozárabe still use) and on to Cádiz. Also not forgetting Somport to Jaca on the Aragonés and dountless many many more.

The pic is of a still working Roman fuente (delicious cool water) on the Vía XXVII at Muro (formerly Augustobriga) on the Camino Castellano-Aragonés between Ágreda and Soria:

 

[Pelegrin]

The Castellano Aragonés is pretty good too - a significant portion following the Vía XXVII between two of the Emperor Augustus' new towns, Zaragosa (Caesaraugusta) and Astorga (Augusta),


View attachment 79559

Astorga was Asturica Augusta.
Yes, the Leoneses are also Astures.

 

[KinkyOne]

Maybe this would also be of some help:

Roman Roads of Iberia

A map of the roads of ancient Iberia, in the style of a transit diagram.

sashamaps.net

 

[Dsavid Keyte]

Part of the camino San Salvador, follows an old Roman road, high in the mountains, it is a short stretch that still has the large stones, the smaller infill stones have long been washed away, standing on it you can almost imagine a legion passing that way, very atmospheric, and difficult to walk on, like stepping stones

 

[David Tallan]

Part of the camino San Salvador, follows an old Roman road, high in the mountains, it is a short stretch that still has the large stones, the smaller infill stones have long been washed away, standing on it you can almost imagine a legion passing that way, very atmospheric, and difficult to walk on, like stepping stones

I remember some similar stretches of Roman road on the Frances which were also difficult to walk on. I also imagined a legion passing that way. But I imagined them hobbling on to the battlefield at the end of the day's walk, barely able to walk nevermind fight. I presume it was easier going in Roman times.