Camino Mozárabe 2024

Today we went to the Palacio de Vania, known for its many courtyards. Here are photos of the palace first floor interior , and the courtyards . After that we walked through the Plaza de la Corredera , and its small mercado . We continued through the streets of Córdoba, then had tapas lunch at the Casa de Pepe de la Judería (tapa of rabo de toro shown).

In our first full day in Córdoba we were good tourists, visiting the mezquita-catedral and the alcázar.  The mosque was built in the 8th century (through the 10th century), the Moors were driven out of the region in the 13th century, and the major conversion of the building into a cathedral began in the 16th century (through the 19th century). Yung Wha and I joked that the Spaniards recognized the magnificence of the mosque, so instead of changing it they just overwhelmed it with Christianity. So, I've simply categorized the mezquita-catedral photos roughly into Moorish and Christian , with no other particular organization or commentary.  We then went to the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos. The Alcázar contains a remarkably well preserved collection of Roman mosaics and other artifacts from the 2nd and 3rd centuries. We climbed to the top of one of its towers, from which we could view the surrounding grounds . And we enjoyed the gardens in relatively cool temperature unde...

It's almost impossible to get lost in this stage of the camino, 'cause there's essentially only one turn the whole day, so it was no problem walking in the dark starting at 6:30. When the street lights end at the edge of town , there is absolutely no other light, but... there was a full moon , so that provided plenty of light to stay on track till the sun came up, and the camino was on a paved highway for the first 5.5 km. The one turn occurred just about dawn , onto a dirt and gravel road with a short steep ascent. At the top of that climb one can actually see the lights of Córdoba in the far distance , although it's still six hours' walk away.  Almost the entire rest of the walk, for nearly 20 kilometers, was on rough gravel road, which was really bruising to the feet. The countryside here was almost entirely fallow fields of grain, being replowed. The farmers were also setting fires in those fields, presumably to get rid of the last of the dead vegetation. At 9...

Today was another pseudo-etapa; here's the story. Yesterday evening in Castro del Río we bought some fruit for today's walk, then strolled around the town, sat on a bench for a while near the ayuntamiento , walked around the old castillo , looked at the Plaza de la Iglesia and the Plaza de Jesus, and then at some point as we were heading back to the neighborhood of our hostal, I suddenly realized that my wallet was gone(!). I checked and double-checked every pocket of my many-pocketed cargo pants, and then broke the bad news to Yung Wha. She retraced our steps while I ran at top speed, muttering, back to where we had been sitting. No luck there. I asked for directions to the police station, and went there. It was completely dark, but the courtyard was open, and inside with my phone flashlight I found a sign with two contact phone numbers. The first one was just the office number, and when I called it I could hear their phone ringing unanswered inside the building. T...

We were out by a little before 7:00 today, we soon reached the edge of town , and by 7:25 Baena was already far in the distance behind us. For the next 20 minutes we enjoyed the pre-dawn light , and by about 7:45 the sun was up , but was still blocked by the mountains. By about 8:30 the sun was fully up, and we had reached the local highway, on which we walked for a couple of kilometers. There were very few cars, so it wasn't stressful. I got a kick out of the way the sun to our east cast our shadows on the trees . Eventually we reached the Puente de la Mutarra, which took us across the Río Guadajoz. Shortly beyond that we came upon a couple of picnic tables and benches that had been constructed for pilgrims on the Camino Mozárabe. We weren't terribly tired, but we stopped and rested there for a few minutes anyway, just so that the Spanish taxpayers' money would be well spent. From there on, the walk stayed fairly level, 'cause we were pretty much just following the ...

Etapa 5 was a pseudo-etapa because we decided to take the bus to Baena. There were several good reasons to skip walking this stage. The temperature was in the mid nineties (a high of 36°C = 97°F) with no clouds, and the route was reputed to have little in the way of unique visual interest from the previous day, very little shade, and no intermediate town or resting place. No need for 26 kilometers of that. Instead, we got to have a full day in Baena and, as it turned out, two excellent meals.  Baena is a town famous for its olive oil. It even has a museum of olive oil, but with our uncanny luck, the museum is closed on Monday. Nevertheless, we did get to taste some remarkable aceite . Upon our arrival we walked into the center of town from the bus station where, next to the Plaza de España, there is a monument to the olive pickers in front of the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe . We then walked to the ayuntamiento in the Plaza de la Constitución , and from there through the...

Once again, a 7:00 start  was good for walking in the coolest part of the day, but did lead to missing a couple of turns in the dark. In the GPX app I was able to notice those mistakes, so they didn't result in very significant loss of time. Just as the sun's coming up is the best time, when the air is chilly, the light is muted but always brightening, and of course one is full of energy. By 8:00 Alcalá la Real was already far in the distance behind. The first community one encounters is Puertollano, a hamlet with a well-maintained porche-lavadero . Then the camino continues through olive groves where, on a Sunday morning, there were quite a few guys out hunting, almost certainly for rabbits, since that was the only game in evidence and there were lots of those.  The second hour of the stage is walking between mountains rather than climbing them, so there was no need to put on sun hat or sunglasses until after 9:00. After that, there was a pretty steep climb fo...

Today's stage started in the dark as usual, a little before 7:00. Although the town is well lit by street lights all night, I was a bit worried about being able to see in the countryside before the sun came up, so I used a GPX tracking app. It's a good thing I did, because I mistakenly walked right past the first turn off of the road just outside of town and the app showed me my mistake. The camino route was on a gravel track that went steeply downhill, so it was slow going at first, but there was just enough light to stay on the path, since it was bordered on both sides by olive groves. By the end of that descent, there was just enough pre-dawn light to see some really terrific views.  It only really feels like sunup at about 7:50, and the sun doesn't rise above the mountains till about 8:20 . So, at 8:25 it was time to stop and don short pants, sunglasses, and sun hat before the first big climb of the day. The town that's about halfway between Moclín a...

We had coffee at the café of the Hostal Montserrat at 7:00, and by 7:15 we were on the road,  pre-dawn . We reached the edge of town about dawn . The light and the temperature were great. Once we were out of town, the first half hour or so was along the narrow shoulder of a highway, but then at the Cortijo de Búcor, a farmhouse and a semi-abandoned hamlet, we started on a dirt path through some olive groves , then crossed the highway into an open field , and went up a narrow dirt path on a mountainside , among olive trees, almond trees, and pomegranate trees, all the way to the town of Olivares . In Olivares we had coffee and tostadas with puréed tomato, manchego cheese, and olive oil. Although we had walked about ¾ of the kilometers of this etapa, the last 3.3 km is steeply uphill, as we could see from our elevation maps. As we said goodbye to the bartender, he warned us "Muchas montañas para Moclín." Fortified with food and caffeine, we figured we could handl...

We got started a little before 7:00 and walked through Granada in the dark , but with ample street lighting. The sun was up by about 7:45, and by that time we were already on the outskirts of the city . We got to the suburb of Maracena , and then from there we walked on a gravel road to Atarfe , past the Monumento de la Concordia to the ayuntamiento ,  where we stopped after having walked nonstop for 2 hours and 45 minutes. The uneven gravel road from Maracena to Atarfe was rough on the feet and lower legs, but the weather was cool and we felt fine. In a café in the Plaza de España , opposite the town hall, we had coffee and excellent whole grain tostadas with puréed tomato and slices of perfectly ripened avocado drizzled with extra virgin olive oil.  We left Atarfe at about 10:30, and the weather was by then considerably warmer, although still pretty mild by Andalusian standards. Fortunately the Camino Mozárabe from Granada to Córdoba goes mostly in the north...

We spent most of this afternoon exploring the areas surrounding the Alhambra: the Alcazaba and the gardens of the Generalife. There are so many beautiful views at every turn that I was taking pictures pretty constantly and indiscriminately. Therefore, I won't even try to describe them or organize them. I'll just provide a single blast of Generalife photos here.  We picked up our pilgrim's passports at the Arzobispado and got them stamped at the cathedral. Tomorrow we plan to leave as early as we can get ourselves going, hopefully even a bit before sunrise, to begin our mini- pilgrimage from Granada to Córdoba.

On the enthusiastic recommendation of Pepe and Rafael, we visited "La Cartuja", the Monasterio de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, which we had not seen before. For no particular reason, we decided to walk there from our apartment rather than take the bus, which took about an hour. In the way, we visited Rafael in his office in the Observatorio de Cartufa on the university campus , then proceeded to the monastery. Seen from the outside , the monastery is not terribly remarkable, and even in the central courtyard it's nice yet unexceptional. However, the church within is incredibly ornate (which is saying a lot, relative to all other Catholic churches), featuring especially some extremely intricate mosaic work of inlaid wood, tiles, and marble. A few pictures will spare me a thousand words.  Then we had lunch with Rafael and enjoyed views of the countryside , Granada , and the Sierra Nevada (not so "nevada" at this time of year) from the town of El Fargue.

We took an Alsa bus from Madrid, through countryside with seemingly endless rows of olive trees , arriving in Granada mid afternoon. After checking into our apartment near the Plaza Nueva and the Plaza de Santa Ana, we met up with our dear friend of 30+ years, Rafael Liñán . Together we strolled along the Carrera del Darro  and the Paseo de los Tristes (albeit joyfully), and turned up toward the Sacromonte, where Rafael showed us the gardens of Carmen de la Victoria . We then continued way up into the Sacromonte where we were most graciously welcomed at the home of Pepe and Cari Romero . Pepe's design of their Villa Carissa is so remarkable that I bet it will become an historical landmark, effectively "the house that Pepe built." In addition to Pepe being a revered master of the guitar, it turns out he's a brilliant home designer, too. Cari served the most delicious tapas imaginable, and we were so grateful to have been able to see both of them. The waxing moon was d...

Sunday seemed like a good day just to stroll in the park. In the morning we went to the Real Jardín Botánico . It was cool and peaceful. Here is a collection of photos of the bonsai section. In the afternoon we headed to the Retiro . Getting there was more challenging than it normally would have been because the major boulevards were cordoned off for a stage of La Vuelta bike race. We had to cross one boulevard via an underground passage for the metro, and another via an underground passage for a train station, but after those detours of several blocks we were eventually able to arrive at the Puerta de Alcalá and the entrance to the park.  Here are some photos from the Retiro , and, from the Rosaleda Cecilio Rodríguez , a bunch of rose photos.

We decided to make an excursion to the famous walled city of Ávila, an hour or so northwest of Madrid. This weekend is dedicated to the Jornadas Medievales , festivities ostensibly celebrating the multicultural history of the city. I expected it to be akin to a Renaissance fair, but it was more like undirected cosplay for some, and a good excuse for everyone to drink and to eat roasted meats . A kind of daytime hallowe'en, with people dressed as medieval soliders , a few even in armor, north Africans in robes and djellabas, and then pretty much anything else: peasant, Palestinian, Xena, and yes, even Batman. It was entertaining, but made anything resembling normal tourism pretty much impossible, so we just took it all in, enjoying the juxtaposition of ancient architecture and contemporary partying. Eventually we escaped the revelry to explore a few other corners of the old city , some of the surrounding contemporary city , and a nice park . 

In the morning we walked a couple of kilometers to see the Templo de Debod , which apparently dates back to about 200 B.C. Along the way we went to the Iglesia de Santa Teresa y San José and the gardens of the Palacio Rea l. In the afternoon, after a jetlag-mitigating siesta, we wandered some more, to the Fundación Isaac Albéniz (Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía), the Iglesia de Santiago , and the Mercado de la Cebada . In the evening we found a true tapas row, on the Calle de la Cava Baja . But we ended up eating a more serious dinner,  sharing a quarter roasted lamb at the Posada de la Villa .

The temperature in Madrid dropped just as we arrived, so the weather has been perfect. In the morning we just walked and explored our neighborhood some more, then strolled on the Paseo del Prado , and had a good lunch in an oddly decorated taberna called El Diario , where Yung Wha sat with Sr. Cervantes . We spent the entire afternoon in the Museo del Prado , after which it was, natch, time for sangría and tapas. Dobrian family sidebar: In the evening we were walking on the Calle de Alcalá toward the Plaza de las Cibeles , so naturally I had to turn down the street where my family lived during my dad's sabbatical in 1971. What was the Hotel Suecia is now a branch of a chain of 5- star hotels called NH Collection (don't ask me), and what was the Restaurante Belman is now a completely redesigned restaurant/bar called Casa Suecia . I chatted with the bellhop (in the picture), and he actually had some photos of the old hotel and the downstairs bar pre-renovation on his phone(!),...

We flew into Barajas airport in Madrid,  got settled into our AirBnB apartment near the Plaza Mayor by 16:00, had a siesta to supplement our not-so-satisfying airplane sleep, then went out to get groceries. By then, it was time for tapas at Fatigas del Querer , an unpretentious old-school bar with wood columns,  tiled walls, and murals . That segued into dinner: Niçoise salad, sausages, and stewed tripe. Then we walked around the neighborhood–the Calle Victoria , Calle de Alcalá , Puerta del Sol , and the Plaza Mayor , passing by the well-remembered Museo del Jamón , which hasn't changed much since we were last in Madrid twenty years ago. 

Camino Mozárabe 2024 Tomorrow Yung Wha and I will fly to Madrid, where we'll stay for a few days before taking a bus to Granada. After a couple of days there, we intend to walk a portion of the Camino Mozárabe . The Mozárabe is one of the many pilgrimage paths to Santiago de Compostela, starting on the southern coast of Spain in Almería or Málaga. In our case, we'll be walking the 170 km portion from Granada to Córdoba , which we hope to accomplish in eight days. We've done this sort of walk a few times before: • Caminho Português, 2015 , Porto to Santiago de Compostela — Chris and Yung • Caminho Português, 2016 , Porto to Santiago de Compostela —  Chris and Oliver • Via di Francesco, 2017 , Firenze to Assisi — Chris and Yung • Via di Francesco, 2019 , Firenze to Assisi — Chris and Oliver • Caminho Português, 2022 , Porto to Santiago de Compostela —  Chris, Yung, Amy, & Mary We'll be traveling without computer or tablet, only our cell phones, so—since typing isn...