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Fromista Canals? What was their purpose??

Time of past OR future Camino
cycled from Pamplona Sep 2015;Frances, walked from St Jean May/June 2017. Plans to walk Porto 2020
Hola, I have walked and cycled the Camino Frances and have marveled at the canal structures as you enter the town of Fromista. Can someone enlighten me? (Please) Why were they built and by whom. First correct answer gets my thanks (and maybe a coffee at some point). The reason I ask is that today's "forum media" shows those massive rock/stone formations. Cheers
 
The focus is on reducing the risk of failure through being well prepared. 2nd ed.
St James' Way - Self-guided 4-7 day Walking Packages, Reading to Southampton, 110 kms
The 2024 Camino guides will be coming out little by little. Here is a collection of the ones that are out so far.
If you keep following it from Fromista the one leg will take you to Palencia and then ends in Valladolid. It looks like an interesting walk!
It is interesting if you walk north but in going south you run out of places to stay in a short time. My own experience was there are areas where there is stagnant water and the mosquitoes are ferocious. It also has a branch that comes from Medina de Rioseca that operates a canal tour boat from time to time.
 
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There is a waymarked path of 11 etapas from Palencia north to Liebana (Potes), where you can connect to the Camino Vadiniense onward to Santiago. It's called the Camino Lebaniego Castellano, it follows along the Canal de Castilla (via Fromista) all the way to its end at Alar del Rey, and continues up and over the mountains with stops at some fabulous Romanesque sites.
 
The first edition came out in 2003 and has become the go-to-guide for many pilgrims over the years. It is shipping with a Pilgrim Passport (Credential) from the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela.
The 2024 Camino guides will be coming out little by little. Here is a collection of the ones that are out so far.

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I was fascinated by Canal de Castilla as well when I walked from Boadilla del Camino to Fromista last year!

From the map (https://palenciaromanica.blogspot.com) of the whole canal which was located mainly in Provincia de Palencia, we could see the magnitude of the engineering project constructed between 1753-1849.
 

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The 2024 Camino guides will be coming out little by little. Here is a collection of the ones that are out so far.
What a marvellous resource. This looks like a walk I'd enjoy.
The canal was planned by the Marques de la Ensenada during Fernando VI's reign.[1] Its purpose was to boost trade by allowing Tierra de Campos' wheat grain production to be transported from Castile to the northern harbour of Santander and to other markets from there; vice versa, the canal was also meant to facilitate the inflow of products from the Spanish colonies into Castile.[1]

The Spanish War of Independence, budgetary constraints and the difficult passage of the Cantabrian Mountainshampered and eventually reduced the initial plan of a 400 km so the canal never reached the Bay of Biscay as initially planned.[1] Overall, its construction took almost 100 years (from 1753 to 1849) and was eventually halted when railroads were built in northern Spain in the nineteenth century, superseding the project.[1]

The canal was most used during the 1850-1870 period, when up to 400 barges plied the canal towed by beasts of burden.[1] Later on, the canal evolved into the spine of a huge irrigation system due to its relative inefficiency vs. railfreight as a means of transport. The locks on the canal were decommissioned in the twentieth century.
 
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