LIVE from the Camino On the camino de Sagunto

[alansykes]

Having messed up my train times, I only got to Sagunto after midday, not enough time to start a 30km first day, certainly not with the temperature in the low 30s. So I checked in to a really nice b&b near the station (Domus Atilia, highly recommended), and got a bus to Port Sagunt, starting point of the camino de Sagunto. Where I had a refreshing swim in the warm calm waters of the spotless beach, before starting this year's camino. The 9th place one of my caminos has started anadyomene - from Huelva and Tarífa in the far south and west, to Banyuls just over the French border to the east. At km 0 (or km 1057 from Santiago) just over the road from the beach, the local association has put up a board showing some of the distances, and painted the first yellow arrow on the ground.



Stupidly, I'd forgotten to bring my towel, so started out slightly squelching with sea water, but the heat soon dried that off.

The walk from the port started pleasantly: a long avenue of palm trees, with vivid oleanders, bougainvilleas, even some jacarandas still flowering, convolvulus, and not very neat lantana hedges. Only 6km later, I was back in my b&b, in plenty of time to spend a happy hour or two ratching around the madly impressive castle on the hillside dominating the town. Originally celtiberian, and successively slighted by Hannibal, Scipio, the visigoths, the moors, el Cid, the moors again, Jaume I, the Bourbons, Marshal Soult, the British and finally the fascists.





The camino de Sagunto is not a hugely popular camino these days, with the local association estimating around 50-100 people a year use it, mostly bicigrinos. But it is apparently a "genuine", historic camino, used in the past both by locals and by Italians disembarking at the port. The 1057km to Santiago is worked out based on taking the camino almost due north to Soria, and then on to the Francés at Burgos (roughly half way) - which is probably not what I will be doing.

 

[nycwalking]

Having messed up my train times, I only got to Sagunto after midday, not enough time to start a 30km first day, certainly not with the temperature in the low 30s. So I checked in to a really nice b&b near the station (Domus Atilia, highly recommended), and got a bus to Port Sagunt, starting point of the camino de Sagunto. Where I had a refreshing swim in the warm calm waters of the spotless beach, before starting this year's camino. The 9th place one of my caminos has started anadyomene - from Huelva and Tarífa in the far south and west, to Banyuls just over the French border to the east. At km 0 (or km 1057 from Santiago) just over the road from the beach, the local association has put up a board showing some of the distances, and painted the first yellow arrow on the ground.

View attachment 157254

Stupidly, I'd forgotten to bring my towel, so started out slightly squelching with sea water, but the heat soon dried that off.

The walk from the port started pleasantly: a long avenue of palm trees, with vivid oleanders, bougainvilleas, even some jacarandas still flowering, convolvulus, and not very neat lantana hedges. Only 6km later, I was back in my b&b, in plenty of time to spend a happy hour or two ratching around the madly impressive castle on the hillside dominating the town. Originally celtiberian, and successively slighted by Hannibal, Scipio, the visigoths, the moors, el Cid, the moors again, Jaume I, the Bourbons, Marshal Soult, the British and finally the fascists.

View attachment 157255

View attachment 157256

The camino de Sagunto is not a hugely popular camino these days, with the local association estimating around 50-100 people a year use it, mostly bicigrinos. But it is apparently a "genuine", historic camino, used in the past both by locals and by Italians disembarking at the port. The 1057km to Santiago is worked out based on taking the camino almost due north to Soria, and then on to the Francés at Burgos (roughly half way) - which is probably not what I will be doing.

View attachment 157257

View attachment 157258

Are you walking to SDC?

Buen camino.

 

[VNwalking]

A very buen camino to you, Alan!
I posted a thread about this camino after stumbling across the Dutch cofraternity track and wondering what camino it was - ironically I'd been looking at approaches to Soria inspired by your camino that year, Alan.
What I learned only raised more questions, so I look forward to reading about your first-hand experience.

which is probably not what I will be doing.

I won't even ask, anticipating a month or so of happy reading. This is better than one of those serial Dickensian novels - a real pleasure to read as the journey unfolds.

And I learn new words.
Or at least new uses of words I know from other contexts

anadyomene

A Venus covered in an alga of this genus? Hmm, somehow I think not...
But coming out of the water with a decent amount of squelching sounds like a fine way to begin.

 

[peregrina2000]

Well, I hope you don’t think we’re stalking you, but I had already told the forum that you were walking from Sagunto.

Looks like we’re in for another month of posts that capture everything about why we walk.

Buen camino to you, Laurie

 

[mspath]

alansykes,

For many years/reasons I have enjoyed seeing/reading your pics and posts.
Thank you for sharing your daily progress as you begin your latest camino.

Bon courage and Carpe diem!

 

[islandwalker]

Getting to know a new part of Spain through your eyes will be delightful. Thanks for taking us along on the journey!

 

[alansykes]

I'm pleased I decided just to walk from the port back to Sagunto yesterday. Mostly because it knocked 6km off quite a long and quite a hot day. But also because I got a proper chance to see Sagunto. Which I liked very much. The castle, of course, but also the town and its people. A really energetic paseo from about 8pm, and a pleasant relaxed multicultural vibe.

The camino then follows the (dry) río Palància upstream for several hours, through Valencia's fertile plain, with orange groves and persimmons and pomegranates on every side - some of the oranges were in flower: possibly my favourite of all smells. The irrigation channels seem to attract mosquitoes, and I was bitten several times. No coffee for 15km, until some welcome open bars at Torres Torres (so good they named it twice). An amiable drunk was shocked that I'd already walked 4 hours and was proposing to do 3 more in the afternoon heat, and offered to drive me to my truckstop ("cinco minutos, maximo"), but having seen him knock back 4 shots of aguardiente in the 10 minutes I was in the bar, I told him that pilgrims had to suffer ("sin dolor no hay gloria").

Shortly afterwards, the camino joins a vía verde, with many deep cuttings. Not so good for open views, but very welcome for shade - and the delicious smell of hot pine and wild rosemary, almost as good as orange blossom.



The water in the plain is really disgusting - it manages the curious feat of tasting brackish and over-chlorinated at the same time. So I hadn't topped up as much as I should, so the truck stop at Sot de Ferrer, about 5km further than I'd calculated it to be, was really really welcome when I got there. And I got there 10 minutes before the kitchen closed, so was hugely relieved to be able to stuff myself with an excellent soup, some pinchos moruños and half a melon in very quick order. Never mind the bed race, the comedor race is the one that matters.



5 hours later, after washing and resting, a full moon has just risen out of the other side of the valley. Life is good.

Are you walking to SDC?

Yes, sqd

 

[alansykes]

At some point late yesterday I apparently left Valencia and made my first ever steps in Castelló province.

The truck stop was serving breakfast from 7, with Venus still dazzling bright to the south, and Jupiter following the moon to the west.



Segorbe was the half way point today, so the morning's music chose itself: it could only be Verdi's "other" Victor Hugo opera, with its glorious conflation of the reconquista with the risorgiomento. The cathedral bells were chiming 10 when I neared the town, and Ernani was defiantly demanding the right to be executed with the other conspirators - "duca sono, di Segorbe y di Cardona". Loads of fuentes, with drinkable water after the horrors of the plain - I squeezed a couple of lemons into this morning's truckstop water to mask the javel. Apparently Segorbe has a fuente with 50 canos, each one with the coat of arms of one of Spain's provinces. But I was keen to press on and avoid the worst of the heat - for the last 3 days the TVE weather people have been almost gleeful in their predictions that tomorrow will see the highest ever recorded October temperatures over most of Spain.

So it was back on the vía verde, busy with weekend lycra and quite a few walkers. I first got a glimpse of Jérica's beautiful mudéjar tower at about noon, and optimistically thought, ah, lunch soon. At about 2pm I finally limped up to the centre of town, gasping "radler, radler".



It's a relaxed and friendly town, and what appeared to be roughly half the population was sitting at tables in the streets enjoying Saturday lunch. As, very soon indeed, was I.

 

[alansykes]

Jérica's bars don't open early, so I was enjoying Jupiter closing in on the slightly waning moon and on my way to tostada and coffee in Viver, 3km further on. This camino of the nice smells continued, with a long street of houses all dripping with flowering jasmine. Yum.

I somehow lost the arrows after Viver, but north is north, so you can't get catastrophically lost, and not being on a via verde on a Sunday is no bad thing - although there was much less lycra than yesterday, the España vacia setting in.



The Camino del Cid takes a fairly wide detour from the Camino de Sagunto after Jérica, so not taking either did no harm.

After passing a shepherd walking his huge flock of ewes and lambs, plus very polite dog.




I then got mapy.cz to plot me a route. It sent me up a steep goat track,



from garrigue into maquis and up - 250m up in just under 2km - to open heath in a huge park of éoliennes, where a pair of eagles mewed overhead. Briefly over 1000m up - my "great good place", usually. Yet more smells, dried cistus and thyme with more rosemary on the way up, then some big clumps of pungent purple blue lavender at the top, finally, on the way downhill, some less delicious fields ploughed with fish meal.

Eventually I rejoined the via verde on a roman road straight stretch for several km to Barracas, where radler and food was being served in a huge and slightly soulless truckstop just by a motorway junction. Given the continuing heat, I was more interested in cold drink and gazpacho than in atmosphere.

 

[Kevin F. O*brien]

Having messed up my train times, I only got to Sagunto after midday, not enough time to start a 30km first day, certainly not with the temperature in the low 30s. So I checked in to a really nice b&b near the station (Domus Atilia, highly recommended), and got a bus to Port Sagunt, starting point of the camino de Sagunto. Where I had a refreshing swim in the warm calm waters of the spotless beach, before starting this year's camino. The 9th place one of my caminos has started anadyomene - from Huelva and Tarífa in the far south and west, to Banyuls just over the French border to the east. At km 0 (or km 1057 from Santiago) just over the road from the beach, the local association has put up a board showing some of the distances, and painted the first yellow arrow on the ground.

View attachment 157254

Stupidly, I'd forgotten to bring my towel, so started out slightly squelching with sea water, but the heat soon dried that off.

The walk from the port started pleasantly: a long avenue of palm trees, with vivid oleanders, bougainvilleas, even some jacarandas still flowering, convolvulus, and not very neat lantana hedges. Only 6km later, I was back in my b&b, in plenty of time to spend a happy hour or two ratching around the madly impressive castle on the hillside dominating the town. Originally celtiberian, and successively slighted by Hannibal, Scipio, the visigoths, the moors, el Cid, the moors again, Jaume I, the Bourbons, Marshal Soult, the British and finally the fascists.

View attachment 157255

View attachment 157256

The camino de Sagunto is not a hugely popular camino these days, with the local association estimating around 50-100 people a year use it, mostly bicigrinos. But it is apparently a "genuine", historic camino, used in the past both by locals and by Italians disembarking at the port. The 1057km to Santiago is worked out based on taking the camino almost due north to Soria, and then on to the Francés at Burgos (roughly half way) - which is probably not what I will be doing.

View attachment 157257

View attachment 157258

Hi Alan, Thanks for another




Hi Alan, Thanks for the fascinating account on the Camino Sagunto. I'm just home from walking the Camino Libaniego, the Vanidiense and then from Leon to Santiago. Might have a look at the Sagunto in the Spring!! PS: Complete and total nightmare from Sarria. Avoid if possible.

 

[alansykes]

Jupiter has moved right up close to the moon and is looking a bit fainter as a result. About an hour from Barracas, a sign by a dried up river told me I was entering Aragón, and I made my first ever steps in Teruel province, my second and last new province of this camino. There are now only four of the contiguous provinces through which one of my caminos hasn't passed - Álava, Guipúzcoa, Vizcaya and Ciudad Real.



Mostly the day was still on the vía verde, and mostly through completely empty countryside. Other than a distant farmer on a tractor, and a couple of people in Albentosa, the day's only en route village, I didn't see anybody until today's destination of Sarrión - and not many there. Beautiful sierras to east and west, and rich red earth underfoot. A lot of evergreen and holm oaks shedding their acorns, suggesting this must be good country for wild boar, but certainly no free range pigs - although a huge relatively new transhumance fuente in the middle of nowhere suggested some livestock must be about. In Barracas and Sarrión there were signs on the shops and bars boasting about having trufa negra, which would probably be delicious with sanglier, if I could ever afford it.

The heat continues - hottest October day ever recorded in these parts, they say, and in much of the rest of Spain. A 500m long former railway tunnel provided a delicious cool shady interlude.

I enjoyed my first solitary day in Teruel province, and look forward to the next week in this portion of España vaciada.

 

[Peterexpatkiwi]

And I learn new words.
Or at least new uses of words I know from other contexts

A Venus covered in an alga of this genus? Hmm, somehow I think not...
But coming out of the water with a decent amount of squelching sounds like a fine way to begin.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I always think of it in the context of Venus, rising from the sea….
An apt analogy definitely . Although as I haven’t yet met either @alansykes or (sadly) Venus, I’m not in a position to say if it’s appropriate or not…..

 

[alansykes]

A scream of swifts preparing to fly south greeted me on an electricity wire just as the sun was breaking over the sierra. Back home, mine flew off about 10 days ago, so it's just possible we were old friends. Just possible. They, and two bicyclists, were the only living creatures I saw all day.

Well, not quite, as for the first half of the walk the motorway was often in sight and even more often in earshot. Sigh. Luckily I'd got mapy.cz to take me off the via verde, shaving several km off a long day, and taking me far away from cars. For a very pleasant hour, the path was on a wide open plateau at 1250m, with a cooling breeze, bliss. A road sign pointed me to the nearby ski resort of Javalambre, but I doubt the lifts will be working for a little while yet. Fat ripe sloes were crying out to be made into gin.



There were several remnants of the battle of Teruel, including "el posición de Pancho Villa", otherwise known as the "parapeto de la muerte". Hemingway must have been on or near the path I took, as he wrote about looking down on Teruel before the siege, and seeing the "four brick Mudéjar towers rising from the city walls and throwing into strong relief the prow-shaped mass of the Monsueto, a rock formation enhanced with Nationalist fortifications that dominated the approaches to the town like a natural bulwark."



I'm very much looking forward to a rest day tomorrow in "la ciudad del amor".

 

[peregrina2000]

There were several remnants of the battle of Teruel, including "el posición de Pancho Villa", otherwise known as the "parapeto de la muerte". Hemingway must have been on or near the path I took, as he wrote about looking down on Teruel before the siege, and seeing the "four brick Mudéjar towers rising from the city walls and throwing into strong relief the prow-shaped mass of the Monsueto, a rock formation enhanced with Nationalist fortifications that dominated the approaches to the town like a natural bulwark."

Alan, this must be a pretty heavy-duty day.

I went to Teruel in 1975 with a study abroad student and his parents (we were based in Barcelona). The father had been in prison in Teruel as a member of the Lincoln Brigades and had vowed not to return to Spain till Franco died. It was a very emotional visit. In 1995, I was back there with my husband who was teaching a study abroad course on the Spanish Civil War, and we went to a site outside Teruel, a “fosa”, where many Republican soldiers had been shot and thrown in the well. On that trip, we also went to Belchite, about an hour and a half from Teruel, where the Spanish government has left untouched the ruins of a town that was destroyed in the Civil War. When we were there, we coincided with a group of Spanish enlisted men and women. Their commander (sorry I don’t know military terminology) told us he always brings recruits to Belchite so that they can see what war does. I thought that was a very enlightened way to educate military recruits.

I don’t know how you process all of this, and I am not trying to take away from the joy of walking a camino, but I know you walk with a clear understanding of where you are walking.

!Teruel existe!

 

[alansykes]

Teruel may be Spain's smallest provincial capital, but it's immediately joined Zamora and Soria as one of my favourites.

A very compact city centre, almost entirely within the remains of the ancient walls. Largely pedestrianised, I spent the morning before the attractions opened (mostly 11am ...) just ambling around narrow streets and the occasional grand public square, with some surprising pieces of modernist architecture alongside the mudéjar.



Much was destroyed during the two terrible sieges, but a lot survived (some almost miraculously), and some has been mostly sympathetically reconstructed.

"Los amantes de Teruel" are Spain's Romeo and Juliet, a pair of 13th century star-crossed lovers whose parents forbade their marriage. Posh but impoverished Diego was told to go and make his fortune in 5 years if he wanted to marry Isabel. He did but made it back home a day late, by which time her parents had just married Isabel off to somebody else. So he died of a broken heart. So she died of a broken heart and they were buried together. Several 100 years after that somebody decided to disinter their semi-mummified skeletons and display them publicly. A few more 100 years later and a sculptor created alabaster sarcofogi for the two lovers' bodies topped with sculptures showing them almost holding hands and their public display was altered to a purpose-built mausoleum. I am told this is all very romantic.



The crowning glory of the mudéjar cathedral



is its 13th century painted wooden ceiling. Hunting scenes, biblical scenes, daily life, intimate portraits, geometric patterns, mythical beasts, all human life is here. Quite breathtakingly beautiful and well worth the severe crick in the neck caused by staring upwards for so long.



My other favourite was the torre del Salvador, one of the city's 4 mudéjar towers, doubling as a gateway through the walls. Lovely views over the city's other towers and the surrounding countryside.




Built by a moorish architect soon after the reconquista of the city, and incorporating many beautiful geometric ceramic and brick decorative features.

Such a relaxing enjoyable lazy day. A repetir, I hope.

we also went to Belchite,

Hoping to visit there if/when I walk the camino del Maestrazgo-Bajo Aragón

 

[VNwalking]

Teruel may be Spain's smallest provincial capital, but it's immediately joined Zamora and Soria as one of my favourites.

I'm glad to have your impressions of Teruel, sounding more than a little pleasant in spite of its heavy recent history. That ceiling looks astonishing.

It's refreshing to read how you've tweaking the route to avoid the overly 'civilized' bits, rather than slavishly following the 'official' way. I've done this a bit - finding that while shortcuts are usually harder, they're not ever (yet) disappointing. May it continue to be so for you, with more eagles and swifts for company and scented foliage underfoot.

 

[Peterexpatkiwi]

refreshing to read how you've tweaking the route to avoid the overly 'civilized' bits, rather than slavishly following the 'official' way. I've done this a bit - finding that while shortcuts are usually harder, they're not ever (yet) disappointing.

Indeed. Yesterday I found myself faced with just such a decision here on the Via Imperii. Sometimes the path led me through town when going around would have been so much nicer. Or off into the middle of nowhere to create two sides of a triangle, a newer road straight ahead creating the base. I found myself walking as I wanted, not slavishly staying on the trail.
I justified myself with this simple reasoning: what would the pilgrims of old have done? And the answer is obvious - they would have walked the path of least resistance, providing it led them to their goal via food, lodging and of course churches.
For them, the goal was all important. For me, it's the way.......

 

[alansykes]

The almost exactly half moon was high overhead with Venus not far behind, and both of them closing in on Orion's dogs when I left my hotel at 7. Slightly sad to be leaving lovely Teruel, but at least the early morning temperature is now only in the mid to high teens, thank goodness. Although the canicule is expected to return for the next few days, so early departures will be advisible.

At about the half way point the village of Caudé appeared, with its church dedicated to St Thomas of Canterbury. But without any coffee, sigh. El Cid stopped here and levied what sounds remarkably like a "protection" tax on the (mostly moorish) inhabitants.



The fertile plain has largely been harvested, ploughed and put to bed for winter. Just a few fields of maize and sunflowers waiting to be cut. With not much excitement (or coffee) to delay, I made relatively good time (for me) and was in Cella shortly after 1pm, just as it was hitting the low 30s. A fine town, with trees of all ages planted everywhere. In the town centre is what claims to be the largest artesian well in Europe, pouring water out at 3500 litres a second during the snow melt. Only about 500l a second in the current drought, but still enough to keep the beautiful ovoid central reservoir topped up, and the channels it serves melodious with swift running water. Part of it flows through a huge handsome lavandero where somebody was busy washing their clothes. I've seen that (twice) in public lavanderos in Portugal, but never before in Spain.



Mulberries, sycamores, deciduous limes, plane trees, poplars, Scotch pines all providing welcome shade after the arid plain, and many well irrigated overflowing allotments. El Cid camped here for a while, waiting for reinforcements for the assault on Valencia. The well was only discovered a century or so after his time - in the Cantar Cella is called to as "la del canal", referring to the now lost Roman aqueduct that used to bring water from nearby Alabarracín.

while shortcuts are usually harder, they're not ever (yet) disappointing

Agreed. The vía verde so often has to take the long way around a mountain that it can be much quicker (and usually lovelier) to take the steep straight path.

 

[VNwalking]

All that water! A satellite view map seems to show that much of it ends up here, not far away from you.

Laguna del Cañizar

laguna del Cañizar

lagunadelcanizar.com

I'd be spending some time there for sure, especially in migration season!

 

[alansykes]

A long hot flat day. The camino del Cid and the camino de Sagunto split again at Cella, the Cid heading west to Albarracín and the Sagunto continuing due north, almost entirely on the vía verde. Albarracín is "uno de los pueblos más bonitos de España", so I was tempted, but it's several days extra, and apparently precarious accommodation after Alabarracín. But it might have been the better option.

On starting at 7, it was a tasty 12, and remained comfortable for most of the morning. Soon after sunrise I could see the lush green oasis of the laguna @VNwalking mentions, otherwise everything was dull ochre, and not a breath of air. Early on, I bumped into a couple of joggers, a few bicyclists and (briefly) a kestrel. But once the heat started rising to the 30s, I had the vía verde completely to myself. Other, unfortunately, than a lot of flies after about midday. So irritating that I put on my mosquito net for the first time ever, which served to remind me of the time, many many years ago, that I was in charge of half a dozen bee hives, and regularly had to put on the protective gear.

This flat monotonous route from Teruel seemed slightly like the Plata section between Zafra and Mérida (arable here, at over 1000m up, rather than vines and olives down there). I've had mild cafard there on 3 of the 4 times I've walked it. I haven't got cafard here (yet), but I'm looking forward to the end of the flat (tomorrow, I hope).

 

[VNwalking]

Alan, you bumped into a Kestrel?
(Well, we do know what you meant, but it's an amusing image.)

I'm beginning to see why this way has more bicyclists than walking pilgrims. May the hills come soon!

Edited to add: I did a bit of searching and it looks like you're in Bustard country, and yes - many raptors. No doubt a lot of the action on that list would be in the Laguna, but it might be interesting overhead, too. I hope you see some of those aerobats!

 

[alansykes]

Three hours in, I found myself in the nondescript town of Monreal del Campo, enjoying my first coffee of the day. I was thrilled to find there was a museo del azafrán just round the corner, and open as well. With the heat, I'd meant to keep on, but I'm addicted to Spain's more monomaniacal museums - the orinal in Ciudad Rodrigo on the Torres, the queso in Casar de Cáceres on the Plata and, my greatest regret, the calamar gigante at Luarca on the Norte, which was closed (flooded, appropriately) when I went past. So I had to call in, and it was a fascinating display and brought back many happy memories of my first job, on a vineyard in the Midi, where one of my autumn tasks was to harvest the flowers from the 500-odd saffron bulbs we'd planted on St John's Eve, and separate the precious vermilion stamens from the worthless yellow ones - the wheat from the chaff, as it were.

Another couple of hours, partly accompanied by a hen harrier - my favourite raptor - and El Poyo del Cid appeared. He camped here for several months, and also took advantage to
"Todas essas tierras todas la paraua:
A Saragoça metuda la en paria", which sounds a bit more like an extortion racket that a verray parfit gentle knyght.

Although still mostly on a vía verde, at least the surrounding countryside is much more varied - the campo undulado is taking over from the flat plain.

The entrance to Calamocha was a delight: a pretty Roman humpbacked bridge over the swift flowing silvery-green Jíloca. And another single-issue museum, this one to jamón. "Calamocha es jamón" is a sign you see all over town. I didn't find the museum as interesting as the museo del jamón in Monasterio, on the Plata, which was fascinating about the dehesa and its 7 (? - or more) different varieties of oak.

My last full day in Teruel province.

 

[peregrina2000]

The entrance to Calamocha

I am assuming this town has no relationship with Calimocho/Kalimotxo. Beautiful bridge.

Alan, where are you sleeping on this camino? You are really out in the España vaciada.

 

[VNwalking]

I follow Laurie 's question about lodging with one about food - how are you faring in that regard? With that much saffron around, it can't be all bad.

pretty Roman humpbacked bridge

Very elegant, with it's refined and slender arch. Amazing that it can still do what it was built to do, two millennia ago.

I am assuming this town has no relationship with Calimocho/Kalimotxo

I got curious and learned some trivia today, courtesy of Wikipedia:

The combination was given various names, until its mass usage at a festival in Algorta led to it being christened the kalimotxo,[5] a playful combination of the two creators' nicknames, Kalimero and Motxongo.

It's got an international folloing:

The same mixture is known as katemba in South Africa, cátembe in Mozambique, bambus (bamboo) in Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia and other Balkan countries, jote (black vulture) in Chile, and jesus juice in Argentina.[9]

 

[alansykes]

The Jíloca valley is really very lovely, often quite densely wooded. Leaving town at first light, you pass many well tended allotments, still rich with tomatoes, pumpkins and courgettes, with cabbage not far behind. All irrigated by channels from the river.

The camino follows the river downstream all day, with a couple of villages en route, complete with mudéjar tower and one, praise be, also complete with coffee and tostadas. My truck stop had told me that breakfast was included in the room price and would be served from 7am. The bar still being firmly shut up at 7.15, I got fed up and left, assuming something else would be open, if only for the shooters. Nothing was - it's probably true that "Calamocha es jamón", but it isn't desayuno. So the first coffee three hours later was absurdly welcome, almost on the border between Teruel and Zaragoza provinces - a very happy six days in beautiful Teruel, hope I can come back sometime.

For the first hours the camino was quite busy with walkers, joggers, bikers, even an extended friendly three generation family out picking quinces, as well as a surprisingly large gangale of deer. From about 11am, nothing, nobody. Everybody else had the sense to keep out of the sun - except for a praying mantis I saw on the path.



Lots of ripe phytolacca berries lined the trail, with their bright Tyrian purple ink. Also quite a few Aaron's Rod, one almost the same height as me, some still flowering, most largely desiccated.

I find music helps on long hot days. It may not be able to put a spring in my steps, but it often seems to take some of the lead out of them. For a long hot day in Aragón, Verdi's (longish) hot Aragonés opera Il Trovatore seemed appropriate, and the Conte di Luna had just realised that he'd had his own brother executed when I passed the Palacio de Luna, almost opposite my hotel in Daroca. Apparently originally built by the (Avignon) Pope Benedict XIII (il papa Luna).

Daroca has a fantastic line of defensive walls and towers, as well as an impressive judería and some grand stone palaces "de portales con escudos
de cien linajes hidalgos".



Sunset was amazing, turning the already red surrounding stone cliffs even deeper vermilion, and with the simultaneous very energetic multi-generational paseo filling the streets and parks with buzzing happy noise.

where are you sleeping on this camino?

Mostly truck stops and hostals, with the occasional casa rural. Until yesterday with no problems, but I was starting to panic when the 4th place I turned up to in Calamocha turned out to be "completo". Is there a fiesta here? I asked. Not here, he said, but there is one in Zaragoza, and a lot of people are escaping the Pilar. Luckily the 5th place had a room, albeit about 1.5km on the wrong side of town. So I immediately booked tonight's room in Daroca as well, first time I've booked ahead.

question about lodging with one about food - how are you faring in that regard?

It's really been mostly very good, some things I'd love to be able to repeat at home. A delicious piece of bacalao in pisto (pepper, onion and courgette - slightly less oily than ratatouille), perhaps more lamb shanks than necessary (two, but it is Aragón, and they are very good). At my very posh blowout lunch today (including a Campo de Borja which, with 28km in the sun, made my siesta longer than usual) some utterly delicious migas with just the right amount of smokey paprika, best I've ever had - also something I singularly fail to make at home. And usually some excellent salad - the tomatoes are still near their best. Also (of course) a completely tasteless chicken breast with soggy chips and no veg (but only once).

 

[SabsP]

Ah Daroca!

 

[VNwalking]

I'm feeling like an ignoramus reading your posts thus time, Alan - this whole part of Spain is terra incognita for me except for Teruel. And even food. Migas? What the heck is that? - I had to ask Google, and then wondered how I'd never encountered it, in all its garlic-soaked deliciousness. The tomatoes sound heavenly, and the walking as well, even if it's a tad toasty. Envy.

 

[alansykes]

Another lovely day following the Jíloca downstream. I had assumed, from seeing a sign to Calatayud, that I would be on the camino natural Santander-Mediterranéo all the way there, as I have been, unexpectedly, all the way from Calamocha. "Unexpectedly", as they have brought this section into action so recently it doesn't even show up on mapy.cz - shaving a very welcome 4km off yesterday's hot slog.

In the middle of nowhere, I was presented with an exclamation mark saying that was it for this section - so, try and forge on, or backtrack 3-4 km to get across the Jíloca. I forged on, eventually crossing the river over a slightly precarious old railway bridge that had lost almost all its planks.



Then back on the Cid path, and through a gorgeous little secret valley with high walls and trees already turning autumnal. Another turn in the river and the valley widened out again, now filled with huge orchards of thirsty pear trees, the local speciality of Villafeliche, my day's destination. On the outskirts of which I saw a sign saying I was on the camino de la Vera Cruz, and 546km from Caravaca de la Cruz. Some other time, perhaps.

I don't know what made it happy, but I was, as its one bar runs the Hostal Sara, a comfy casa rural, and did a perfectly decent lunch. At dusk I enjoyed an hour or so exploring the steep stations of the cross leading up to its ruined castle, which sunset turned to blood. Mapy.cz assured me there should also have been a mezquita on the hillside, but I couldn't find it.

 

[alansykes]

A final really beautiful day following the Jíloca gently downstream. Fernando, who runs the bar and the hostal Sara, very kindly made me breakfast at 7.30. Apparently there are 1000 people in the village in August, former locals coming home from their jobs in Valencia or Madrid or Barcelona. 100 permanent residents the rest of the year. At least it means that virtually no houses are falling down, unlike further upstream.

The dying moon was close up with Venus when I left.



Far off to the north was a strangely familiar "blue remembered hill". I finally worked out it was Moncayo, highest mountain in the sistema central and about 70km off when I first noticed it. I've seen it before from the east, from the north and from the west - from the caminos del Ebro, Castellano-Aragonés and Lana, but this was the first time from the south.

Nearing Martial's birthplace and needing some music in the heat, "Monsieur Choufleuri", Offenbach's satirical mocking of grand opera, bourgeois mores (and Belgians) seemed appropriate.

I finally said a fond "hasta luego" to my friend the Jíloca as she made her confluence with the Jalón near Calatayub. I've been with her for a week, from over 1000m up at her impressive nacimiento in Cella to here in Calatayub at about 550. First time I think I've ever tracked a river all the way from its source on a camino.

Round the corner from my hotel is San Juan el Real, with 4 fathers of the church painted by Goya when he was about 20. Almost invisible, other than Gregory the Great.



I caught sunset at Ayyub's castle above the town, very beautiful.



And that was the end of my camino de Sagunto, as I can't see any realistic way of carrying on northwards to Soria, not having a tent with me, or any particular desire to sleep in a church porch (the days may be over 30°C, but the nights are a bit chilly).

 

[VNwalking]

And now? We look forward to seeing where you go from here.