Monesterio 30 September

 

Jamón iberico appetizer for midday meal

Walking into Monesterio 

Typical Extremedura landscape 

I like starting the days walk just before sunrise, currently about 8 am here in Spain. The air was cool and still and damp from last evening's rain, and quiet, too. The photos are of the Castillo de Torre just outside of La Real. I walked out of Andalusia this morning and into Extremedura, which seems to be the forgotten province of Spain. It is a more hilly region, with less arable land and less attractions for tourists. It's claim to any fame is that it is the region where the pigs fed on acorns to make jamón iberico are raised. Today's walk was about 13 miles, with mostly gentle but a few steep ascents, a gain of about 1000 feet, to an elevation of 2520 feet.

El Real de la Jara 29 September 2022

Today seems to be animal day with encounters with goats, acorn eating pigs, horses, and dogs. The walk was short at ten miles but steep up and down over the mountains of oaks. It reminded me a lot of the oak woodland of the Cache Creek wilderness area. The land wasn't suitable for cultivation, but there were several animal raising operations and a lot of gated pastures to walk through. I got into the private albergue at 10:30 am, so I will have the rest of the day as a rest day.

Almaden de la Plata 28 September

Highway walk

Cork oaks just harvested. The cork bark will grow back and can be harvested again in twelve years

Cork drying

Pine forest

The top of the hill. We walked sp from the path below

Looking the other way down at Almaden de la Plata 

Midday meal with Anya from Germany and Stuart from Scotland 
 

With eighteen miles to cover today, the first nine miles on asphalt were a bit discouraging especially since the road had a lot of ups and downs making for a lot more climbing than the elevation actually gained. The reward was the second half that took a path through the Parque Natural Sierra Norte. It went through cork oaks, then eucalyptus, and finally pine forests before a final steep ascent aptly named after Calvery from the Bible. I'm resting up in a nice 10 bed private albergue here in this small town.

Castilblanco de los Arroyos 27 September 2022

 

View of Castilblanco from the albergue terrace

Tuna croquetas for lunch

Middle part was nice forest of scrubby oak 

Sun coming out over wheat field

First part was olives and oranges

Today's walk normally would have been easy at twelve miles, but it was all a gentle uphill with a final elevation gain if about 1000 feet. Still I arrived at the albergue by 12:30 am, to be informed by the hospitalera that opening time was 1 pm. I walked to the town center and had a menu del diá with two other pilgrims. 

Guillena 26 September 2022

 

Disking in the cotton stubble.

Finally a nice farm road 

Road walking ugh 

Triana

Triana, no, I didn't stop at BK

Memories for my daughter, Julia 

The Guadalquivir River. It was from here that Columbus set sail for the New World.

First day on the Via de la Plata. The first half was though the suburbs of Triana, Camas, and Saltiponce. The second half was open farmland until the city of Guillena. It was my first night in an albergue with more than two other people since 2014. Quite a difference, there are people here from Germany, France, England, Scotland, and Canada.

Sevilla 25 September 2022

 

A Goya in the cathedral 

Cathedral organ

Cathedral 

Alcazar garden

Moorish influence in the Alcazar

Lots of New World gold in the Magdalena church

Murillo in the Museo

Zurburan in the Museo

It was my day to be a tourist among the throngs here in Sevillla. I started with the Museo de Bellas Artes, which has the second largest collection of Spanish paintings (behind the Prado). Heavy on the locals Zurburan and Murillo, only one El Greco. Then the Magdalena church. After a lunch stop, on to visit the Real Alcazar, which started life as a Moorish fortress and ended up being the Sevilla residence of the Spanish royalty. Last was the cathedral, which was really huge and hard to take in all the art there. I'll hit the road again tomorrow, walking the Via de la Plata.

Travel Day 24 September 2022

some rough country between Albacete and Sevilla 

Andalusia is olive country with everything from ancient huge trees in non irrigated groves to new irrigated trellised plantings set up for machine harvest

And cotton, too

This was a travel day as I am completing the parts of two unconnected caminos in order to finish the parts of them previously left undone. Unfortunately the only train between Albacete and Sevilla did not leave until 2:30 pm. It was supposed to arrive in Sevilla at 7:40 pm but was 50 minutes late. and there was a taxi driver's strike so it took additional time to find an uber ride to my hostal. A slow check meant i didn't get my room until 9:30, so no post sooner. At least I made it. I'm writing this at my mid day meal in Sevilla in my day of being a tourist here. More in the next post and camino walking resumes tomorrow.

Albacete 23 September 2022

 Albacete 23 September

Today was an easy 11 mike walk to Albacete, the largest city in the La Mancha region. It was from this city in 2017 that I walked the Camino Levante from here to Zamora. With the past nine days of walking from Valencia, I have walked 133 miles and have now completed the entire Camino Levante. 

There is what was supposed to be a new albergue de peregrinos here in Albacete. My route took me past, so  when I saw the shelter for homeless people at that address, I asked and sure enough this was it. Luckily it was full but I would not have stayed even if it wasn't. With no other options, I went on booking.com and found a nice room at the Hotel Europa.

I walked to see the cathedral but it was locked up tight, just as in 2017. I would have thought a big city like this would have a better selection of restaurants, but it was mostly bars and cafeterias. i finally found a menú del diá, but it was rather mediocre. Anyway, I'm resting up back at the hotel to get ready tomorrow for part two of this adventure.

With all the flat land why build a city on the steepest hill around. I started by walking all the to the top.

Then back down

A lot of overdevelopment in the early 2000's left many unfinished ghosts like this absndy industrial site

Nice flat farmland in between 

Hotel Europa 

Vegetable paella. They cheated by using orange colorant instead of saffron 

Mediocre pork chops and greasy French fries. You can't win them all.