Another piece of the Camino de Levante...

[HeidiL]

Over New Year's in 2015-16 we walked from Valencia to Chinchilla del Montearagón.

I have just started plotting about the next little stretch - Chinchilla to Mota del Cuervo, which will be eminently doable in the little time my husband has off from work the first week of October - 2019. If he gets any more time off, we might even get to Toledo, but that's not the plan for now.

If this goes on, we might have covered the whole Levante within a decade or so...

(but next Easter, we're walking El Cubo de la Tierra del Vino to Astorga, to be done with Via de la Plata.)

 

[Pilger99]

>to be done with Via de la Plata.
Don't get me wrong, but Astorga is only a stopover .
The route ends much more north in Gijón (Asturias) http://www.rutadelaplata.com/en/localidades-asociadas#menu-secondary

 

[HeidiL]

Not according to my favourite guide!

Actually, there are many variants.

 

[HeidiL]

Something came up that week, and then there was Covid. This time, we have plane tickets, and are planning to walk Chinchilla - Quintanar de la Orden a week in February.

 

[peregrina2000]

Something came up that week, and then there was Covid. This time, we have plane tickets, and are planning to walk Chinchilla - Quintanar de la Orden a week in February.

You’ve probably seen this, but there’s now an albergue in Chinchilla. Looks very nice, and it is up in the historic part of town — the two truck stops were, as you probably remember, down below on the highway.

Buen camino, and looking forward to hearing your reports!

 

[HeidiL]

Yes, I saw that. Nevertheless, I'm planning to go to Albacete, stay overnight, take a bus to Chinchilla, walk back to Albacete without a backpack, and if the albergue in La Gineta remains closed (I have two phone numbers), travel back to sleep in Albacete again, and then start walking from La Gineta the third day.

 

[HeidiL]

These plans remain firm. We have tickets, some reservations, and a lot of phone numbers.

What we're missing: PATIENCE! I would like to start walking tomorrow...

 

[HeidiL]

Last run-through, looking for open albergues, etc. We are going to have sleep in hotels half the nights, but the prices are mostly acceptable. It is actually CARNAVALE that week, so we're going to have fun in a few of the small towns, where, according to their turismo web pages, there are processions and celebrations.

 

[HeidiL]

We had a great walk, including a meal at a Michelin-star restaurant, a carnival procession, a circus festival, a night in a convent, a night in a bullfighting arena, and a lot of beautiful views. We didn't meet a single pilgrim, and we were happy that we speak Spanish - but it was a great walk.

We ended it in El Toboso, where there are no buses on Saturdays, and took a taxi to Quintanar de la Orden, which has direct connections to Madrid. My knee and hip were acting up a bit, but I can still walk.

The receptionist let us leave our poles at Hostal Viky outside Barrajas, and we will be back on March 23rd to do another bit of Via de la Plata...

 

[HeidiL]

I had a total knee replacement in October, and have used camino planning to avoid thinking about the pain of exercise. We are (hopefully) walking Paris-Orléans in February, and if that goes well, returning to El Toboso at Easter to walk - at least to Toledo.

 

[HeidiL]

We have plane tickets to Madrid on March 20th and bus tickets to El Toboso on March 23rd. Just in case my replaced knee is troublesome, I have planned really short stages (10-23 km) and, because many albergues aren't open in March (and the ones that we found are, respectively, used to house the homeless or has no water) we're sleeping in hotels every night. We're ending in Toledo, in time for quite a lot of Easter processions.

If I find that the stages are too short, the hotel reservations mean that it can't be helped - but there are plenty of museums and eremitas we can walk to in the afternoons, so I'm sure we'll get plenty of walking in anyway...

 

[OzAnnie]

It’s quite chilly right now in Zamora.but weather looks to be perking up at bit. You should enjoy some great weather hopefully by then.
Good luck with the new knee. I think you are sensible playing safe with stage lengths until you know how it will go.
Buen camino.

 

[HeidiL]

Chilly is fine, as long as it's not too wet. I live in Norway, and my prefered walking temperature is around 10 C...

 

[HeidiL]

It did get chilly - and very, very wet. Wading in deep mud is probably not recommended for 5-month-old knees.
But we had a lovely walk, ending in Almonacid de Toledo, which is where we'll continue walking from next Easter. We used motorized transportation into Toledo, where processions awaited us. My knee very firmly stated that I had walked enough, and it was not hard to persuade the others.

On the way, we also met David and Kylie from Australia, and had delightful meals with them twice. We (husband, son (28) and I) also had some lovely meals on our own, including a two-Michelin star one.

In addition to the official kilometres on the Camino, we also did a lot of walking in Madrid and Toledo. In fact, my phone registered 150.3 km of walking between March 20th (incoming flight) and April 1st (outbound flight). An Easter well spent.