Walking Hospitales AND Pola de Allande

Hi, Primitivo people,
I know there's a lot of talk about whether you should go through Hospitales or via Pola de Allande, but I may have an extra day or two at the end of my camino, and thought that I might be able to do both!

Sleep in Campiello/Borres. In the morning, walk from Campiello/Borres up through Hospitales. At the Puerto de Palo, turn left and retrace the Pola de Allande route back to Pola de Allande.

Next day walk from Pola de Allande to Berducedo, La Mesa, or beyond depending on my energy level and interest that day.

If anyone else has done this, or has any opinion about it, let me know what you think. Buen camino, Laurie

Tia Valeria said:

We are thinking of 'back-tracking' part of the Hospitales route from Puerto de Palo, then walking the 'right way' back to the car! just to see what we missed by walking from Pola in 2012. Great idea Laurie

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Tia, I have walked from Pola de Allande up to Puerto de Palo and on to Berducedo, and I remember that the bit between Pola de Allande and the pass (where the two branches of the Primitivo join) is very well marked. And also very close to the road, so I'm assuming that even I would not get lost. I also remember that the route up from Pola de Allande goes through lovely green tunnels with lots of babbling brooks, at least that was my experience in an October walk. If it were me, I'd rather park in Pola and walk up, so that the second half of my day would be walking down rather than walking up. There's also a very popular restaurant in the hotel Allandesa in Pola de Allande, but since most of its most popular dishes are bean based, they would not be the kind of thing you would want to eat before starting out on an uphill walk (Gronze shows the Pola to Puerto part as being about 7.5 km with about 600 m elevation gain. That's not a cruel ascent but it isn't trivial either.

Oops, I see now that I misread your post, but I´ll leave that info in there in case others are thinking about some backtracking.

I guess that I would make the same general suggestion if it works with your travel plans -- park the car in Borres and walk up to Hospitales, then the second half back to the car is downhill rather than uphill. I'm always happier when I have the hard uphills first thing rather than after several hours walking.

Pelegrin said:

In 2014 I parked my car in Borres. I found only a place to park in front of a house. I did Hospitales to Puerto del Palo and Pola de Allande in reverse. I had pote at La Allandesa (very strong!) and back to my car in a taxi.
Wonderful day! I think it is an excelent idea to do this.

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Hi, Pelegrin,
Can you give me an idea about whether you had difficulty finding the arrows to get down to Pola from Puerto del Palo?

Any memory of how much the taxi cost? This might be a great option for Tia! Thanks, Pelegrin.