Next camino (2019): Mozárabe or Portugués?

[jungleboy]

@Wendy Werneth and I are in the early stages of deciding which camino to do next year. We have two windows of opportunity and are thinking of doing either the Camino Mozárabe from Almería to Mérida from mid-March to mid-April, or the Camino Portugués Central from Porto to Santiago, with the possibility of continuing to Muxia and Finisterre, from late May to early June.

What do you think we should do? Please vote in the poll if you want to.

Here are a few very basic pros and cons (from our perspective) to get us started.

Mozárabe

Pros:

• We love Andalucía
• It’s a longer walk
• Olive groves!
• It’s off the beaten track

Cons:

• There might not be (m)any other pilgrims, so there might not be a ‘camino spirit’
• We’ve already been to Granada (x2), Córdoba (x2) and Mérida

Portugués

Pros:

• We live in Portugal and walking in Portugal will help us understand/integrate into our adopted country better
• We would finally get to go to Muxia/Finisterre, plus reaching Santiago is always nice

Cons:

• It’s a shorter walk
• It’ll probably be raining in Galicia because it always is when we're there

 

[Canuck]

Other is my vote.
Go Camino de Uclés(6 days) combined with Camino de Madrid(12 days). The two meet at the Church of Santiago in Madrid.
New places to visit, quiet caminos, good accommodation, a pleasant mix of terrain, easy of access (Madrid).
The Camino de Uclés alone is worth a visit. You'll seldom see a camino so well maintained and full of pleasant surprises in a very friendly environment.
Have a good one, whichever you choose.

 

[Praorn]

I walked from Seville to Santiago in March and met only few people who started in Granada. And the whole time there were not many pilgrims at all which I enjoyed a quiet Camino and many days I walked alone. I got to Santiago much earlier than expected so I took the train to Tui and started el Camino Portugues around beginning of May and there were many people comparing to la Via de la Plata. Besides there are a lot of road walk. Besides I heard about Variante Espiritual so I took that route from Pontevedra, it was very nice but not quiet, a lot of pilgrims.

 

[peregrina2000]

Based on this year’s spring, which is of course no predictor of next year’s spring, we were very lucky that we set April 11 as our meet up day in Almería. It had literally been raining every day for a long long time. Our arrival broke that cycle. Over the next 32 days of walking, which brought me to Salamanca, I had one twenty minute hailstorm and no other rainfall. Temps were not bad at all (but now I always have to add — not bad at all, unless you are like @alaskadiver and can’t stand temps over 15 C.). Is there a reason that mid April to mid May is not a possibility?

During that timeframe, the Mozárabe is NOT a solitary camino, and the Almería Association is incredible (shout out to Verónica and Mercedes especially). They were shuttling inflatable matresses up and down the camino to take care of the bubble and there are also very affordable casas rurales (frequently four of us got two or three bedroom apts for under 100 €).

I had also been to the major cities, some as many as four or five times, but walking in is always a special treat. And it takes the pressure off to see the big attractions. In Granada this year, for instance, @amancio took me to visit the mihab right next to the cathedral. I had never been there and it was a short dose of amazing moorish architecture without the crowds and the waits. And Almería has opened a tour of the Civil War shelters which is oh so worth the visit, and something you can get on line ahead of time (they sell out always). Plus a nice hilltop castle. Bet you haven’t visited Moclín, Alcalá la Real, Guádix — and a few others great stops, so you would be covering a lot of new territory.

I know there is divided opinion on the mozárabe (which reminds me, I should set up a thread for this year’s mozárabe mob to weigh in with opinions so you can get a more balanced opinion.

I personally would wait till you had time to walk out your door and start walking to Santiago rather than start in Porto. The routing and accommodations on the route from Lisbon are changing and improving every year.

So, I didn’t vote, but that’s not because I don’t have opinions!!! Buen camino, Laurie

 

[David Tallan]

I went with the Portugues because the pros seemed stronger to me. To mitigate one of the cons, you could always start further south than Porto.

 

[jungleboy]

Thanks for all the suggestions (and special thanks to @peregrina2000 for vetoing both ideas! ).

To clarify a couple of things, unfortunately the mid-April to mid-May window is out as we'll have other things going on at that time, and the late-May to June window is a shorter one (not exactly sure but it looks like we'd have a maximum of 25 days, with 20 perhaps being more realistic).

I personally would wait till you had time to walk out your door and start walking to Santiago rather than start in Porto. The routing and accommodations on the route from Lisbon are changing and improving every year.

Wendy's keen to walk from Lisbon too, so maybe we should save it after all.

Another option might be to walk the Rota Vincentina during the first two weeks of April, and then do a different shortish camino in the late May - early June window, such as the Portuguese Interior + Sanabrés, or Del Mar-Inglés-Finisterre. How does that sound?

 

[peregrina2000]

Maybe the weather this year was the odd guy out, because I am pretty sure others on the forum have walked as early as you propose. Contacting the association directly would be an easy way to get an opinion from someone with a lot of historical infoI. If you wrrite to the association email address, someone will answer you very quickly. Another consideration would be prime time wild flower season. I assume we had such a stunning show because of all the rain, and the almond trees were just blooming. I think you might not get as much spring blooming as early as March, but I am not sure. I know that the jara trees that were so prevalent on the days before and after Mérida were still not in prime time when I walked through, but they were blooming.

I don’t know the Rota Vicentina at all, but I have spent time in different points along that coast and it is gorgeous. Carrapateira and Odeceixe have amazing coastlines, and I’m assuming the route takes you from headlands to beaches. I know some have found the sandy walking hard, though. The CPI sounds very nice as well, I haven’t been keeping up on what’s going on and whether it is coming into its own or whether it is an effort that is fizzling.

Sanabrés from Zamora is a great route, and if you ever get back to Zamora again (walking the Vdlp, Levante, Mozárabe, etc), instead of repeating the Sanabrés, you could turn off and walk the Portuguese variant from Zamora, which goes through Bragança. And past the amazing San Pedro de la Nave, a pre-romanesque church saved from the flooding caused by a dam by being moved stone by stone, like Portomarín or Riaño. Lots of good options to keep you walking for years!

 

[peregrina2000]

Thanks for all the suggestions (and special thanks to @peregrina2000 for vetoing both ideas! ).

To clarify a couple of things, unfortunately the mid-April to mid-May window is out as we'll have other things going on at that time, and the late-May to June window is a shorter one (not exactly sure but it looks like we'd have a maximum of 25 days, with 20 perhaps being more realistic).



Wendy's keen to walk from Lisbon too, so maybe we should save it after all.

Another option might be to walk the Rota Vincentina during the first two weeks of April, and then do a different shortish camino in the late May - early June window, such as the Portuguese Interior + Sanabrés, or Del Mar-Inglés-Finisterre. How does that sound?

As I sit scratching my head over next year's camino, I remembered that you had done some of that as well. Just wondering -- What's the status of your camino planning?

 

[jungleboy]

It looks like the June window is out for us now because junglegirl has accepted some work at that time. So we might try the Rota Vincentina in the first two weeks of April, but it's still up in the air. We have to get through three months in South America later this year first!

 

[jungleboy]

Although reading some of the VdlP threads, it sounds like the mid-March start date that we’d originally considered for the Mozárabe could work. So maybe the VdlP to Zamora or Astorga could be an option.

Which caminos are you trying to decide between Laurie?

 

[peregrina2000]

I’m probably going to start in the north next year, with the Vasco Interior for starters.
@jungleboy, you are lucky to be so close, so you could easily have a coupel of alternatives depending on weather closer to the date. Mid March might also work to start the Mozárabe, and you could get to Mérida or however further along you made it. I just remember that last spring was non-stop torrential downpours through a lot of Spain. I know that it ended about a day before we arrived in Almería on April 11. After that then I had only one brief 20 minute spell in a thunderstorm on my way into Campanario, with the rest being dry. Who knows what 2019 will bring?