Hi,
My plan is to fly into Madrid and make my way to Zamora, by bus I suppose. I want to walk the Via de la Plata though Portugal and am trying to figure out exactly how to access the trail once in Zamora. Kind of hard to tell from online maps. Thanks so much for any help.
-Andy Shearer
Hi Andy
Go from Zamora to La Hiniesta rather than Roales de Pan. You can pick up the Portuguese Camino just outside La Hiniesta. Be sure to stop there to have a look at the beautiful gothic facade of the church.
Here is the extract from my book, 'Tortoises on the Via de la Plata' re Zamora to La Hiniesta:
Outside in the navy blue morning, we winked at the moon and sped past the stars, along a smooth, tarmac cycle lane, painted green. It was a beautiful path flanked with on both sides with trees and shrubs. It was a broad path too. The type that leads to many a family fracas, or, to put it Biblically, destruction. And although we didn’t yet know it, God was about to show us that we were lost.
We chattered like birds as we walked and planned to stop at the next village, Roales de Pan, some six kilometres away to have eat. Although we walked fast, it was some time before we found the village.
“Here it is,” I said. “At last.”
“This isn’t it,” said Alan.
“Of course it is, what do you think it is, a mirage?”
“We’re looking for Roales de Pan.”
“Yeah. And here it is. These houses are the start of Roales de Pan.”
“No. They’re not. This village is called La Hiniesta.”
“Eh?”
“Look. At the sign.”
My eyes followed his finger.
“Oh yeah. But didn’t the book say Roales de Pan came first?”
“Yes.”
“I told you that guidebook was rubbish.”
“No it isn’t. We wouldn’t get anywhere without it.”
“Of course it is. Otherwise it would have said La Hiniesta came first. Come on let’s get coffee anyway.”
But the village was still sleeping and everything was closed, so we had to walk on. We continued following the arrows into some fields; but, of Roales de Pan, there was no sign. Fortunately, after we had walked a kilometre or so, we encountered a man working in the fields. We asked him how far it was to Roales de Pan.
“Roales de Pan is on the Via de la Plata,” he said.
“We know it’s on the Via de la Plata,” I said, raising my eyebrows to heaven. “How much further is it?” I added patiently.
“You’re on the wrong road,” he said.
I stifled a sigh. ‘Country people,’ I thought. ‘They don’t even know where they live.’
I pointed to the arrow we had just passed.
“
Hay la flecha amarilla,” I said. “There’s the yellow arrow. We have been following them since Sevilla.”
“
Si, todos los caminos tienen flechas amarillas,” he replied. “All the Caminos have yellow arrows.”
I nodded.
“
Si, yo sé,” I said. I know. “So do you understand me? We need to know how far it is to Roales de Pan?”
“This Camino, is the Camino Portugues, it has yellow arrows too,” he said. “The Via de la Plata is back there,” he pointed in the direction we had walked, back near Zamora.”
“Gracias,” I said.
“Whoops. We sloped off back to the village, where, thankfully, a bar open. The coffee was bitter because pride is a hard pill to swallow.
The woman in the coffee bar was sweet though. She didn’t have a stamp for our credenciales; but, she took me to meet her friend in the local shop, who did have one. The women were very keen to hear the story of our pilgrimage and, in return they told me their story, the story of La Hiniesta. In fact they showed me.
The woman from the shop draped a cardigan around her shoulders and, shutting the shop door behind her, started walking down the road. Her friend went out too and bid me follow. As the three of us walked down the road, I thought we were going back to the bar; but, we bypassed the broad, main road and instead we turned towards the church.
King Sancho IV, another Sancho, enjoyed hunting. He was out with his horse, and his hawk, hunting in the fertile valleys down below Zamora, when his hawk brought down a partridge. Sancho cantered after it through the dry, sandy valleys filled with gorse-like broom. Broom, a shrub with yellow flowers and green slender, leafless stems, is called
hiniesta in Spanish. Sancho rode to where the hawk was guarding, but unable to get to, the terrified partridge. The small bird was still alive and cowering fearfully underneath a bush of broom.
Sancho alighted from the horse and bent down to pluck the partridge from the bush, but instead of feeling feathers and a beating heart, his hand touched a statue. He pulled it out and saw it was the Virgin Mary. The statue had sheltered the partridge. Sancho, bowing to the will of Mary, let the partridge fly free and he built a shrine to the Virgin on that very spot, which today is the church of Santa Maria la Real.
While the church was being built, the Virgin was placed in the church of St Antolin in Zamora. Her own church, was ready in 1291 and, when she went there, she was accompanied by another statue of the Virgin Mary, the patron of Zamora, and a procession of people. This original pilgrimage gave rise to one of the most important holy festivals of the Zamoran calendar. Every Whit Monday the
Virgen de la Concha, Virgin of the Shell, who is the patron of Zamora, is taken from that church of St Antolin and carried to La Hiniesta, to visit her cousin.
The entrance to the church of Santa Maria la Real is sculpted. A beautiful and a rare example of Gothic relief with scenes from the childhood of Christ and, are lower down while, on the upper walls, Christ the Judge is seated on his throne, with the Virgin and St. John and two kneeling angels beside him.
