11 miles 

2650 ft of elevation up and 3625 ft of elevation down

Alternate title for this day: Does anyone see the trail?

After waiting for what seemed like forever for breakfast at our lodging in Trevélez, we finally set off on Day 4 of the GR7 after 9am.

We climbed to the top of the quiet village under a cover of clouds, and warmed up quickly in the cool morning air.

When the village ended, we still kept climbing up through mountain farms.

We passed sheep and horses. Dogs and cats.

We criss-crossed the edges of steep slopes, crops planted unfathomably on hills.

Farming already seems like awfully hard work to me on a flat plain, but mountainside farming must be hard on a whole other level.

We rose high above the town of Trevélez fairly quickly.

Early in the day we missed one or two of the GR7 marks and had to back track to find our way.

The red and white markings are usually easy to spot, but there are places where the markings have faded and other places where they are marked along overgrown tracks that no longer resemble a worn trail.

We determined that perhaps this section of the GR7 is less-traveled than the previous days.

For the beginning and ending parts of the day we traveled along a dirt track. Waving goodbye to Trevélez, we looked across the valley at the trail we had been on the previous day. We were drawing a big U-shape with our footsteps with our entrance into and departure from the jamon-themed village.

After a while the trail curved away from the valley and we could no longer see the town behind us.

And soon after leaving the dirt track, the trail seemed to disappear.

It would later reappear, seemingly out of nowhere, complete with clear markings, only to disappear fifteen minutes later.

I used my GPS to follow where the trail should be but often we would have to turn around and find a different way because the way was covered in large branches or impassable overgrowth.

It was slow-going to say the least, and a bit frustrating. We stopped for a snack on a wide expanse of rocks. Someone must have placed them there intentionally at some point, but what for we never figured out.

The rocks served as a good resting point. While the gals had some snacks, I went to scope out the next stretch of trail, looking for the least overgrown way forward.

We later discovered that the recent heavy rains had washed away parts of our trail and covered other bits with lots of debris, which we navigated as best we could.

There were a few falls, several slips and many scrapes and scratches as we traveled the miles between Trevélez and Pitres. It was a trying day to be sure.

I would rejoice when we found a marker or a clear bit of trail. Then I would feel downtrodden fifteen minutes later at losing it again.

We made our way forward, slowly but surely inching closer to our destination.

We stopped for lunch after finally reaching a dirt track again.

When I sat down to eat, I practically fell asleep on my pack.

Apparently getting lost is very tiring!

I was relieved to discover that after lunch we could just follow the dirt track the rest of the way down into town if necessary.

It was a long way down into town, so we stayed on a trail that was shorter than the road. However it crossed the switchbacks of the dirt road over and over again so it was always nearby if we needed it.

At some point we caught up to a cat that walked with us most of the way down. Our new companion charmed the girls so much that they perked up at the end of a long day.

Between our late start and the slow progress of bush-wacking, this day seemed to wear on forever.

We reached a point where we could see Pórtugos, a town that was just a mile or two before Pitres. We decided we would stop in Pórtugos for much needed refreshment and call it the end of the day.

While we rested, we expressed much gratitude for finally being off the mountain.

Then we decided to take a picture of how we all really felt at this point in the day.

Laughing, we filed into Pórtugos and found a young waiter willing to bring us veggies and drinks even though the restaurant was shutting down for the afternoon.

We ordered up a big plate of patatas a lo pobre (poor man’s potatoes) with eggs on top.

The waiter laughed at our bad Spanish and at how ravenous we all were.

We never wanted to leave, but eventually it was time to walk the last mile to Pitres and find our hotel.

Pitres was so quiet when we arrived that for a moment, I wasn’t sure it was inhabited.

I interrupted an older gentleman’s nap at the hotel in order to ask for our rooms. He was sleeping around the corner from the desk in an armchair.

After I disturbed him a second time for the wifi code, I told the gals that we needed to let that poor man sleep. No more questions.

Which was fine, because they all crawled into their beds for naps as well.

After a warm shower, I went to make dinner arrangements. After the previous night’s terrible meal and the morning’s disappointing breakfast, we were overdue for some yummy food. I felt we had earned it after the day we’d had.

Thankfully, in Pitres, there is a master chef from Malaga who came to the countryside for a quiet life. He opened this beautiful restaurant overlooking the mountains in Pitres and serves up his gorgeous creations each night to the lucky few who wander into the village and find him.

We were the only ones at El Jardin del Mirador that night. I had to drag the gals out of bed and up the hill to the restaurant. We walked up there feeling like we could just as easily have gone to bed rather than have dinner at all.

At El Jardin de Mirador, there are tables outside with beautiful views, but the temps were dropping as we arrived so we sat inside the small cozy spot.

Our host listed off the various dishes he could make for us and everyone chose different ones so we would have a variety.

He cooked all the meat on his grill, and then he would come inside and hand our plates through a little window from the kitchen.

We were all revived as we enthusiastically oohed and ahhhed over every dish that came through the window.

The chef told us he had been in Pitres for several years, but that he had grown tired of the small-mindedness of the village.

Everyone in this town would rather just have a pizza place!

He said he was headed back to Malaga soon to open a new restaurant there.

When we discovered that El Mirador was in its last season, it felt so special that we had spent an evening there.

It was like we found a secret (and temporary) door that opened onto the best meal of our whole week.

We promised to come find him in Malaga when we next returned to Spain.

He couldn’t believe how far we were walking. Then he told us that we were sure to be in the rain the whole next day.

Oh no, I said. It won’t rain on us. 

At the end of the night, he poured out goodbye shots. It was Zoco, a Spanish liqueur made from sloe berries.

We giggled and talked on top of each other all the way back to the hotel.

It’s amazing how a good meal and a lovely evening can wash away even the roughest of days.

This is the fourth in a series of posts about hiking the GR7 in Spain in the Alpujarras. Many of the photos come from my fellow hikers: Kristie, Eve, Zoe, Alexis and Kelsy! I’m super thankful to them for trusting me to lead them on this adventure. 

If you enjoy reading about my wanderings, consider subscribing to get future updates.

The post GR7 in Spain Day 4: Trevélez to Pitres appeared first on Alison Chino.

11 miles

3000 feet of elevation up and 2200 of elevation down

We woke up early for Day 3 of our walk on the GR7 in Spain.

Because we had our breakfast already prepared in the fridge we could choose the time, a small luxury when you’re at the mercy of B&B hosts and their schedules.

So we had a 7:30am breakfast of hard-boiled eggs, toast, yogurt, granola, fresh fruit and a cheese and cured meats platter. It was a massive amount of breakfast compared to the previous days and we ended up packing up some of it into our equally massive sack lunches.

Then we strapped on our packs and started to climb out of Bérchules into the hills.

I love going uphill in the morning if there is a little chill in the air. The cold pushes you to climb just a little faster so that you warm up.

We were going to cross our highest point of the week so we had a lot of climbing to do. 

We weren’t climbing the Mulhacen but we were going to hike up to what would be our best view of it. 

High in the Alpujarran hills, I expected that we might even spot snow. 

After a good start at climbing we stopped for a midmorning break on the hillside. We broke out the rest of breakfast and even a bit of lunch though it was still before 11.

After our break we walked steadily uphill and came to a forest where we did indeed find some snow that had not yet melted. The shade of the trees protected some little frozen patches.

It certainly wasn’t an amount to have fretted over as I had done just a bit when I had arrived in Granada and glimpsed the snow topped Sierra Nevada, living up to its name. 

It was just enough snow to be fun, exciting to glimpse evidence that we were right at the beginning of the proper hiking season. 

We had the mountains all to ourselves. We passed no other hikers on this day and very few on any of the other days, which is unusual for me when hiking in Europe.

I don’t know if there is a high season for hiking the GR7, but I wouldn’t imagine it is in summer when the temperatures soar above 90 degrees F, even in the mountains.

We felt like we were hitting the trail at the exact perfect time, even if most of the villages were very quiet.

At the high point of the day (6600 feet), we took lots of photos while the Mulhacen darted in and out of the clouds behind us.

We were all feeling the exhilaration of making it to the highest point of the week.

The mountain vibes were in full effect!

I think we all managed to leave this spot with a new hiking profile pic. 

It was a little early for another food stop so we carried on along a dirt road that started to descend.

When our tummies started rumbling, we found an outcropping of rocks just off the trail for our picnic. 

We were all super excited for our packed lunches as our host in Berchules had gone all out. 

Besides the usual sandwiches and crisps, she included many small treasures: little foil packs of sliced cucumbers, dried figs, hard boiled eggs and little juice boxes.

After our feast, we had some naps, or at least resting our eyes.

We had used a lot of energy on the climb.

After naps, it was time to descend. 

And descend and descend. 

Oh how my knees miss climbing when it’s time to go down. 

Grateful for the trekking poles that save our joints, we kept descending until soon we could spot Trevélez in the valley below. 

The mountains seemed even bigger, while the town seemed to stay far in the distance.

Trevélez is the highest village in Spain.

The village is famous for hams. Jamon de Trevelez is famous all over Spain and especially all over Andalucia. The hams cure in the mountain air in warehouses.

And I believe the pigs are corn-fed to make the taste of the ham even better.

Eventually the village got close enough that we knew we were almost there.

We came up over one more hill and then wow, we were so close!

Finally, beautiful Treveléz.

To get into town we crossed over a river, and so true to our trip theme, we had to make a stop to make love to the water.

After the long descent, it felt so good to soak our feet in the freezing cold mountain water.

I got all the way in up to my knees to help with inflammation.

After we checked into our rooms, we found a cafe with a table in the sun and immediately ordered up some drinks and of course, some Trevélez jamon.

The gals said it was delish, and I took their word for it since I don’t eat meat.

Once we’d rested for a long while, we wandered about the village.

I took so many photos of these handmade pot covers.

The whole village was decorated in these brightly colored crocheted pot covers and banners.

And of course, with hams.

You could purchase both in just about every shop.

In fact, this village had more shops than any of our previous stops so my fellow hikers found some treasures to fill the very little space left in their backpacks.

There were large warehouses where the hams were hanging to cure.

But we never saw any live pigs, which confused us until we realized that the hams are sent to the mountain village to cure, but the pigs aren’t actually raised there. Zoë discovered this by asking the locals questions in Spanish. Since she couldn’t remember the word in Spanish for “pig”, she asked (to the immediate amusement of everyone around us) “Where are the hams that are not dead?”

You can buy anything in the shape of a ham in Trevélez: earrings, key chains, magnets. You can even press the shape of a ham onto a penny as a souvenir.

It was a good thing we ate such a lovely snack and drinks in the square when we arrived because our hostess wasn’t quite open for the season yet. We realized this when everything we had for dinner was brought out from her freezer. It was not our best meal of the week, but we ate it gratefully and went to bed, super tired and dreaming of hams.

This is the third in a series of posts about a week of hiking the GR7 in Spain in the Alpujarras in early Spring (March/April). Many of the photos come from my fellow hikers: Kristie, Eve, Zoe, Alexis and Kelsy! I’m super thankful to them for trusting me to lead them on this adventure. 

If you enjoy reading about my wanderings, consider subscribing to get future updates.

The post GR7 in Spain Day 3: Bérchules to Trevélez appeared first on Alison Chino.

OR

alternatively this day could be titled:

Make Love to the Water

We headed out early on Day 2, our first REAL walking day on the GR7. We would cover over 10 miles with some more significant elevation drops and gains on our way to the next village on our itinerary: Bérchules.

We headed downhill out of Yegen into the morning sunshine.

It was a beautiful spring day, exactly the kind I dream about when I am training throughout the winter in the cold rain.

Much of our trail was made up of old donkey tracks that had been paved over, so we pounded the pavement for miles.

Whenever the tracks turned to gravel, my knees and ankles were grateful for a little more give in the ground, even if the dusty trails kicked up bits of rock into our shoes.

The trail markings on the GR7 are generally very good, but occasionally we had trouble spotting them. Sometimes the sun had faded the paint on the marker,  and the whole post blended into the mountainside. You had to get closer to spot it.

Soon the sun rose high enough in the sky to reach us on the trail and we warmed up fast, shedding layers and drinking more water.

After descending a while, we started to climb to Mecina Bombaron, a village that we had planned to stop in if there was an open cafe as it was the only one we would pass through on this day. Originally I had planned for us to sleep in Cadiar, but there hadn’t been a place to stay that was open for the season and would hold all six of us, so we were pushing on to Bércheles, skirting around Cadiar altogether, opting to avoid an extra 1000 ft drop down and back up again.

It was already a steady uphill climb to the next village without dropping down to Cadiar, but the cool mountain air made for such a pleasant morning of walking.

I wanted us to log several miles before the sun got too high, but a theme of this trail is that if you find an open cafe, you should go ahead and stop, even if you aren’t too hungry or tired yet, because there might not be another one for a long time.

So we took full advantage of the open bar in Mecina Bombaron and stopped for second breakfast. (Our first breakfast had been instant coffee, yogurt cups and fruit from the tiny supermarket in Yegen.)

Fresh squeezed orange juice in Spain is one of my most favorite treats, so I ordered up a round of jugo de naranja and cafe con leche.

We also had the ubiquitous toast with tomato puree, olive oil, ham and cheese before moving along through the village.

Mecina Bombaron carried on the “book” theme from Yegen, another nod to the famous author that lived and wrote there.

As we left the village, we stopped at a fountain to refill our water bottles.

An older gentleman was drinking from the fountain and told us that the water from this particular fountain was the very best in all of the Alpujarras.

Then he put his whole head under the fountain, turning it from side to side and just letting the water run down his face.

He gestured to us to follow his example.

I wasn’t quite hot enough yet to be dunking my head in the cold fountain, but he was insistent.

You can’t only drink it, you must MAKE LOVE to the water!

Clearly we were not convinced, so he continued,

If you do not play, you will miss your life!

I was trying to decide if I was going to volunteer when Zoe removed her her hat and stuck her head in the water.

The old man was so delighted and we all cheered for her.

Most of us had just met Zoe, but we all fell in love with her when she stuck her head in that fountain.

We were all laughing as we left the village to rejoin the GR7, and just like that, Make love to the water! became both a catchphrase and theme of our whole trip.

We would come back to it again and again.

I love a good swim on a hot day, especially after a hike, but now I will forever phrase the glory of a post-hike dip as making love to the water.

The day began to properly heat up as we carried on, so were glad we had all re-filled bottles at the fountain.

By the time we decided to stop for lunch, everyone would probably have been happy to find a little water to dunk our heads into, but we were up high and there was none to be found.

We did find the perfect picnic spot though, high on the trail and across the valley from our destination.

Bérchules seemed close enough to reach out and touch, but in reality it was further away than we imagined.

We ate our packed lunches on sunny rocks looking over the valley and just soaking up the beautiful day.

After lunch, we carried on down a road that seemed like it was heading away from Berchules in the opposite direction, but then Kelsy spotted a gate that had some faint markings for the GR7 on it.

We opened it up and took the small track behind it down into the valley.

The valley had a fairly steep drop off to our left so we couldn’t quite see how we were going to cross it, but the trail revealed itself as we carried on.

As trails often do.

Walking a new trail requires a bit of faith. Sometimes you have to move forward without being able to see what’s ahead.

You have to believe that the way will emerge as you carry on. There will be a way. You just don’t know what it looks like yet.

Then you come around a rock and you see the trail start to cut switchbacks back and forth across what seemed like an impossible ravine edge.

From below, we looked back up at the layers of rock we had come down and the trail seemed to have disappeared behind us.

A small river cut through the bottom of the ravine. We walked across the bridge over the river and onto the trail on the other side before I realized that we should absolutely not pass up an opportunity to make love to the water!

Y’all! We should go back and make love to that water! And so we did.

Because we don’t want to miss our lives by not playing.

And also icy cold water on tired feet is SUCH a balm!

Then we dried off, put our boots back on and climbed the hill to the village.

By now it was getting on in the afternoon and we were craving our post-hike drinks and snacks.

We hoped that everything wasn’t closed for siesta yet!

Fortunately there was an open bar in town, so we made our way inside and collapsed at a long table. The bar had some cheese puffs for sale on the wall. So we grabbed a bag and dumped it out on the table.

I think we finished them all before our drinks even came.

Clearly, we needed to pack more lunch tomorrow. We also ordered an extra large sandwich that looked like a giant doughnut. You cut it into pieces to have several small sandwiches. So clever.

After our bar stop, we found the hotel where we were staying, but they were having a plumbing problem. The water had been turned off in the entire hotel, which also included the restaurant where we were hoping to have dinner.

But our sweet hosts, a mother and daughter from the Netherlands, had prepared some other apartments they own for us. They usually rent them out by the week but they offered them to us in place of the hotel rooms.

They turned out to be so beautiful with balconies overlooking the Alpujarras and little fridges stocked with drinks.

We all said we would LOVE to come back and stay in them for longer.

We spread out over the balconies and soaked up the last of the sunshine.

We laughed about the day and looked at the map for the next day’s hike while our hosts cooked us the most beautiful dinner.

A Moroccan dish cooked in a clay tagine with beans and veggies.

They also brought us breakfast for the next morning and generous sack lunches for the next day.

We felt so spoiled and as I went to sleep I said a little prayer that our sweet hosts would be able to get the hotel plumbing fixed before the Easter Holidays. Apparently it’s really hard to get work done in these remote villages and our hosts were on the cusp of the busier season, so they really needed a plumber to come.

Because obviously you need working toilets, sinks and showers in a hotel. I was so grateful that we had not had to forgo showers!

After a hike, a shower feels so good. You just want to stay in there forever. It’s like making love to the water.

This is the second in a series of posts about a week of hiking the GR7 in Spain in the Alpujarras. Many of the photos were taken by my fellow hikers: Kristie, Eve, Zoe, Alexis and Kelsy! I’m super thankful to them for trusting me to lead them on this adventure. 

If you enjoy reading about my wanderings, consider subscribing to get future updates.

The post GR7 in Spain Day 2: Yegen to Bérchules appeared first on Alison Chino.

It’s often a mystery to me how a trail ends up on my list of ones I’m hoping to get around to. I heard about the GR7 in Spain from several sources, but I think the main reason I finally put it on the calendar and made it happen is that the portion of this trial in Andalucía is so far south in Europe that it can be comfortably hiked in early spring.

The GR trails are a massive network of trails all over Europe. I believe they started in France so GR stands for Grandes Randonnées, but in Spain they are called the Grans Recorridos. And they have different names in other countries, but mainly a GR is a long trail, a way to wander around Europe in the most delightful way possible…on foot.

The GR7 runs through France, Andorra and Spain. The portion that runs through the Alpujarras in the Sierra Nevada in the far south of Spain seemed like the perfect next journey for my crew of spring hikers who are game to head off just about anywhere I suggest within reason. We roped in a couple of new friends and off we went!

We met in late in March in Granada, where the sunshine was plentiful but the evening temps still required puffy jackets. Perfect for hiking. We could even see snow in the mountains in the distance.

We had an afternoon and evening in Granada before taking off for those mountains.

It was just long enough in Granada to want a little more time, so we were glad we had booked another day there at the end of our trip to see the Alhambra.

We wandered the old town and found our way to a drinks spot with a view of the Alhambra.

Some of us were just meeting and some of us hadn’t seen each other since last year so we had lots of catching up to do.

We laughed over drinks and then once we were too cold too sit outside any longer, we climbed higher to a Moroccan restaurant where we had dinner.

Before the food came we warmed up with the most beautiful pots of tea.

It was just the beginning of noticing all the North African influences in Andalucía for my group. The next morning we stopped for breakfast at a cafe with colorful lamps everywhere that reminded me of the teapots from the night before.

The Hike Begins

I had requested that we make a very early start from Granada so we would have time to stop for breakfast along the way. So at 7:06am we left our hotel and walked the two miles to the spot in Granada where we were catching the bus to the Alpujarras. I had planned only a five mile walk on the start of the trail that afternoon, so it seemed like a good idea to add a couple miles more that morning.

As I marched us through the quiet morning streets of Granada, my newbies expressed a little consternation to their friends about how quickly we were moving.

Kristie and Alexis confessed to me later that they had both reassured Eve and Zoe that I would not walk this fast all week. But it was cold and dark and I did not want us to miss our bus. The next one was at 5:40pm. So yes, I was moving quickly.

We stopped for a quick coffee and a classic Spanish breakfast: bread spread with tomato puree, olive oil, ham and cheese. (We would see A LOT of this breakfast in the week ahead!) Of course, I was tapping my toe and rushing everyone along so that we could get over to the bus stop and wait.

And wait.

And wait.

The bus was late enough that I started to research other ways to get into the Alpujarras.

It was late enough that I asked random people at the bus stop where they were going and if they knew anything about the Alsa Bus to the Alpujarras.

It was late enough that any bus that came along, I boarded and asked if the driver had any information about the Alsa Bus to the Alpujarras.

I was starting to formulate a plan about what we could do for the day if we had to wait for the 5:40pm bus. Had we missed the morning bus? Had it come early?

I wasn’t in a panic, but my brain was in overdrive creating Plans B, C and D.

And then the bus arrived exactly 37 minutes late.

We got on. I let everyone know we would be on it for a while and the road getting into the mountains would have a lot of twists and turns. So several of my jet-lagged American friends fell asleep as we made our way out of Granada and up into the hills. After about an hour, we stopped in Lanjaron where I would spend a week the following September. Then we drove through some of the towns we would walk back through. The road snaked up and up, and I was amazed that the driver could navigate such a large bus around all the narrow curves.

After several hours on winding roads, the driver pulled over on the side of the highway and let us out in the absolute middle of nowhere. From the side of the road, I directed my sleepy friends up a small lane in the sun where we reached the very quiet village of Mecina Alfahar. I had hoped we might have some lunch there, but thankfully we all were prepared with snacks because there was a whole lot of nothing open in Mecina Alfahar, which would be a bit of a theme on this trail.

So we pulled out our oranges and snack bars and headed up the hill to find the trail.

We hiked a few miles in the hot sun before we reached the village of Válor, which thankfully, had an open cafe!

We were able to get some food (Spanish tortilla!!) and a drink I had recently learned about on a previous trip: Tinto Verano.

Tinto is red wine and verano means summer, so this beverage is cold red wine mixed with sparkling lemonade. It seems more common in Andalucía than sangria and I like it better. (But it’s hard to steer me away from a cold Spanish lager.)

After some refreshment, we carried on in the hot spring sunshine. Because of the bus and the late start, we were walking at the hottest part of the day, which helped us be motivated to get an earlier start the next few days.

All the villages have spring fed fountains with water from the mountains, so we would refill and cool off with a little splash here and there.

We rolled into Yegen a little after 4pm.

Ending the GR7 in Spain in Yegen on Day 1

Most of the villages of the Alpujarras are pretty chill. But Yegen is next-level quiet.

Its claim to fame is that British author George Brenan lived here in the 1920s. I had never heard of him but his book South From Granada is a bit of a British classic about Spain and I later read it. The most amazing part of his story is that when he lived here, the village was only accessible by donkey or foot, so if he had visitors, he would walk all the way to Granada to escort them back to his house. He regularly WALKED the journey that took us over three hours by bus. I had to pause reading the book on multiple occasions to just wonder at his wild scrambles across the Alpujarras.

But now, even though you can drive a car to Yegen, the village is probably less populated than it was in George Brenan’s day. There is a tiny little supermarket at the bottom of the village that we explored to restock our snacks for the next day and for breakfast because our host wasn’t serving breakfast until 9am and I wanted us on the trail well before then.

We rinsed out our sweaty clothes and then tried to catch all the remaining sunshine before the evening air brought in the chill.

By dinnertime, we were cold enough for a fire. We were staying in the only pub in town but it was closed on the day we arrived. However, our host, an Irish lady who had moved to Yegen over 20 years ago, agreed to make us dinner. She reminded us more than once that it was her day off, and so we felt a little awkward about coming up for dinner, but there was nowhere else in town to eat and we had exhausted the resources of the little supermarket.

While we enjoyed the fire in the chilly dining room, she gave us our choices (pork belly or steak, veggie plate for me) and then headed off to the kitchen to prepare everything. We devoured the food when it came which was good because very soon it was time for us to go. Our host had a lot to do, and again reminded us that it was supposed to be her day off.

So we went to our rooms like good little children and she locked the doors behind us so we wouldn’t help ourselves to more drinks in the pub.

Thankfully there was another door to the outside from the hallway, so we could get out the next morning.

Before we went to sleep, we made cups of tea in our rooms and watched the most beautiful Alpujarran sunset through the windows before settling into bed. The early start had caught up to us. I think I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

This is the first in a series of posts about a week of hiking the GR7 in Spain in the Alpujarras. Many of the photos were taken by my fellow hikers: Kristie, Eve, Zoe, Alexis and Kelsy! I’m super thankful to them for trusting me to lead them on this adventure. 

If you enjoy reading about my wanderings, consider subscribing to get future updates.

The post GR7 Spain: Day 1: Mecina Alfahar to Yegen appeared first on Alison Chino.

I first visited Andalucía in September of 2024.

I already knew from hiking the Camino that I love Spain.

Whenever I arrive in Spain, I immediately want to pull up a chair and stay a while.

If I am on a walk in Spain, I can’t pass a vende sign without stopping to look up the property to see how much it would be to buy a small house that I could turn into a pilgrims’ albergue, (my life plan for when my legs stop wanting to carry me so far down the road).

Because I keep returning to the Camino in northern Spain, it took me a while to get to Andalucía in the south, but now that I have been, I cannot seem to get enough of southern Spain.

Just over two years ago I signed up to lead a trip in what is known as the Sherry Triangle, just south of Seville near the coast.

Fast forward two years and I have led four trips in the region and have plans to lead three more in 2026.

So what is it about Andalucía that has swept me right off my hiking boots?

It’s actually hard to say. I feel like I am still at the beginning stages of a love affair with Andalucía that I hope will continue for many years.

What I have to share about Andalucía is not a wealth of knowledge, but more like fragmentary impressions of a place I am still getting to know.

I’m still learning what it means that the cities and villages in southern Spain have “Moorish influence.” Between the 700s and 1400s, the Moors (a word that included Arabs, Berbers, Syrians, Persians and eventually Spaniards) ruled over much of Spain. Seville, Granada and Cordoba were all developed during this time period, which is what makes them and their surrounding smaller towns and villages so architecturally unique from the rest of Europe.

Los Pueblos Blancos (white villages) were built by the Moors and they were what first drew my attention to the area. I kept seeing photographs of these whitewashed hilltop towns. The first tour I led in Andalucia was actually called Los Pueblos Blancos.

There are so many pueblos blancos that it will take me many more trips to visit them all! From their perches on high, these villages invite you from afar to come wander their tiny, winding roads.

It’s difficult to choose a favorite, but I love how in Vejer de la Frontera, the locals decorate their courtyards with plants.

And everyone has outdoor seating with a view.

The ancient practice of whitewashing these towns kept the houses cooler in the summer heat, and it served to keep the walls sterile and clean, repelling both disease and bugs.

But mostly I think the whitewashing creates an inviting feel to these towns.

Different towns add their own local flare to the decor. Locally-crocheted canopies decorate Vélez de Benaudalla and in Trevelez, the highest village in Spain, all the flowerpots have their own handmade covers.

Flowers are definitely a theme. When I come home from Spain, I want to plant pots and pots of flowers everywhere, and in all the colors of the rainbow.

Artisan tile and creative cobblestone patterns are more ways the locals differentiate their white villages.

Around every corner is another tiny surprise.

It’s easy to get lost, but also easy to find your way. You just head uphill until you can see where you are again.

Another delight of being in Andalucia is that you are never too far away from the sea.

There are over 600 miles of coastline to enjoy and everyone you meet has their favorite beach.

Because I usually fly in and out of Malaga to get to Andalucia from Bristol, I like to bookend trips with days along the Costa del Sol. The C-1 train from Malaga Airport makes the beach way too easy to access.

As soon as I arrive, I walk along the seafront and smell the charcoals burning outside every restaurant where cooks are putting fresh fish on the spit.

Patatas bravas and boquerones are the perfect seaside treat. After several visits, I finally convinced Taido to meet me here for a weekend at the end of a trip, and I think I have won him over to the delights of being in the Spanish sun so hopefully more of these views are in our future together.

I also love the province of Cadiz and some of the beaches on the western side of Andalucia, where the surfers hang out for the winds.

It’s quieter than the Costa del Sol, but not as easy to get to with public transportation. I rented a car to explore this stretch of El Palmar de Vejer for a few days after a tour.

On my first trip to Andalucia in province of Cadiz, we spent time in Jerez and El Puerto de Santa Maria, both famous for sherry.

I didn’t think I liked sherry but I had no idea that there were so many kinds. After much sherry tasting with tapas, I found a dry sherry that I enjoy: Oloroso.

We did some coastal walks and wandered through several different nature reserves.

Our walks on this trip weren’t too long. Four or five miles tops. And we almost always followed our walks with a long lunch in some beautiful place.

After lunch, if there was time, we might head to a town square for a quick sherry before a bus ride back to our hotel.

After that first trip to the Cadiz province, I signed up to go right back and lead another Andalucían adventure, but this time I would stay in one of those small hilltop white villages.

I arrived in Tolox in the Sierra de las Nieves Mountains in March of 2023 after weeks and weeks of rain, both in Britain and in Spain.

The landscape that had been brown and dusty in the previous autumn had all turned green.

Instead of sherry tasting and city visits, this time I was there for a week of local walks in the Spanish National Park: Sierra de las Nieves.

I emerged from the winter glum of the UK into the Andalucían sunshine and it was delightful.

I walked new trails and made lists of places I wanted to come back to with friends.

Every afternoon we would return to Tolox from a different direction.

The welcoming sight of the village quickly became my favorite view of the week.

We ate simple, but beautiful meals at our hotel and in local restaurants in and around the village.

One day we took buses to the nearby village of Yunquera and then made our way back to Tolox across a valley and hills in between the two villages.

We had a local guide on this trip and we learned so much about the countryside plants and trees, including what was planted in the terraced hills around the towns: mostly olives, oranges, lemons, almonds and avocados.

I don’t know when I’ve seen so many olive trees!

Our walks were closer to eight miles each day, so we carried picnic lunches and spent the whole day outside.

I had such a hearty group of walkers from the UK. I had one couple from the Isle of Wight in their 70s who walk 20 miles every Saturday.

I am reminded on these trips that a body in motion stays in motion.

If we got back early in the afternoon to Tolox, sometimes we would stop in the main town square for a drink.

But most days we were back in time for a shower, a quick rest and then a walk to dinner.

I do love a week in the hills, and the hills in the Sierra Nieves were just about as lovely as my local hills, but with less rain.

We traveled through several forests, some of which are recently planted. The entire region is a biosphere reserve, where local plants are being protected and preserved.

We enjoyed hunting for wildflowers, especially orchids and tiny little wild daffodils, just about the size of a thumb.

And in the hills, there are still remnants of where farmers packed ice down in the winter to save for when the snow melted. The Sierra de las Nieves don’t see nearly as much snow as they used to, but at one time, the snow from these hills was the main source of ice in a time before refrigeration.

The ice was cut into blocks and loaded onto donkeys to sell, a luxury for those who could afford it.

It’s wild to think about life before refrigeration or electricity, especially since in the history of the world, both are relatively recent. I’m fairly sure I would not thrive without either.

Of all the places to sit and ponder these and many other life mysteries with a sandwich, the hillsides of the Sierra de las Nieves are pretty not too bad.

From Tolox, I took several buses to reach Granada to meet up with my friends for a week of hiking on the GR7, a hike from village to village for seven days. It was so delightful that I am saving it for its own post.

But as a teaser, here is a photo of us at our highest point of the hike with the Mulhacén in the background. (At 11,414 feet, the Mulhacén is the highest mountain in Spain.)

For now, I will skip ahead to my most recent trip to Andalucía and another week spent staying in one of the lovely pueblos blancos, but this time in the Sierra Nevadas.

Lanjarón is the town of water.

The name is derived from the Arabic words that mean “land of springs.”

True to its name, there are water fountains all over the town of Lanjaron, and people fill up their giant jugs to take home because the pure spring water is delicious.

Maybe it’s the water that makes everything else in Lanjaron shine so bright, but even the produce outside the markets caught my attention.

At every meal, I tried to order something that included slices of the gorgeous local tomatoes.

We stayed in the lovely Hotel Alcadima where we could eat breakfast outside and have dinner with a view of the surrounding hillsides.

On one of our first days we visited nearby Niguelas to go to an olive oil museum where the ancient modes of making olive oil with giant stones are preserved for history. Olives were loaded onto baskets and carried by donkeys up to Niguelas to be pressed into oil. The guide at the museum brought the entire process to life for us and I’ll never pour out olive oil without thinking about her careful instructions for buying and tasting the best olive oil.

A couple of days before the guests arrived, I went to Niguelas to make sure I knew where we were going and to do the walk we planned to do.

Then I walked back to Lanjaron on the GR7 which took me a little longer than I planned.

But I got high above both towns and ended up getting a good picture of the region that could only be traversed by donkeys until not so long ago. Lanjaron is the gateway to the Alpujarras, this region of the Sierra Nevadas. It was an important outpost in medieval times and as the Nasrid (the last Moorish) Kingdoms fell in the 15th century, the Alpujarras were the final stronghold.

In fact, we learned that after the Catholic church officially expelled Muslims from Spain, these villages kept at least one family behind to teach the conquistadors how to maintain the complex water system (or acequias) that the Moors built in these towns.

We walked along many of these ancient irrigation canals during our week together in the area.

Even the streets are designed to move water through the hilltop villages so that they don’t flood in the rain.

Of course the flowers and plants are beautiful in the town of water.

It was very dry and hot during our week there in September, but you would never have known it from the lush plants and gardens.

However, the hills were super dry and I had a fine layer of dust all over me at the end of every day’s wanderings.

One day I got high enough to enjoy a mountain spring that was running above ground, but mostly the water comes from deep within the mountains.

There are lots of hiking routes that follow the acequias (irrigation canals) so that you can see how high up they were built.

When my group arrived, we had mostly shorter hiking days followed by lunches in small villages.

But just in case we had a picnic or if we needed a snack, I kept my two favorite treats from the region in my backpack.

Toasted Spanish almonds and a fig log, which is dried fig mixed with chopped almonds and shaped into a loaf. These two items will forever be the treats I bring home from Andalucía. (Along with a bottle of Oloroso.)

Prickly pears, which were growing everywhere, are another local treat. They are so bright and inviting, but you only make the mistake of reaching out to touch the pink fruit with your bare hands one time. (Don’t ask me how I know.)

It would be hard to choose a favorite day out from our week in and around Lanjaron, as every day in the sunshine is a good day to me.

Our itinerary included several walks along local water routes, the favorite of which was probably the one that runs into Niguelas from the mountains above it.

We also visited a cave in Nerja where people lived over 25,000 years ago but was only discovered in the 1950s. Stretching over three miles with cave paintings that are more than 40,000 years old, the preservation of this site is impressive.

Another highlight of the week was a day in Granada. We had a tour of the old town and then spent the afternoon in the Alhambra.

The Alhambra is a palace and massive fortress complex built in the 1200s by the first Nasrid emir, who established Granada as a state in Andalucía, then called Al-Andalus.

As one of the best-preserved palaces of the historic Islamic world, the Alhambra is the most visited monument in Spain, to and it’s not hard to see why.

The detail in the architecture is just stunning. I spent a long time staring at the walls and ceilings of the Nasrid palaces taking in the exquisite ornate carving everywhere.

I can’t fathom how you make everything so symmetrically perfect in a time before modern tools. I would love to have watched some of these walls being created by artisans of the Nasrid Kingdoms. Many of the carvings are actually inscriptions with phrases from the Koran or other ancient writings.

The Alhambra also has beautiful gardens that you could spend days and days exploring. I have so many photos of the Alhambra that I will probably need to do another whole post just about this incredible place. But you can only take in so much in one afternoon before your legs are tired, and my group was wilting a bit in the sun by the end of our visit.

The day after we went to Granada and the Alhambra, we did a short coastal walk by the sea and walked to the top of  Salobreña.

From the top of the 10th century Moorish castle we could see for miles across the sea.

After exploring, we wandered down through the village and out to the beach.

We found a seaside cafe where we had a very long lunch, followed by a quick paddle in the sea before we went back to Lanjaron. (A “paddle” is what British people call wading barefoot in the surf of the sea.) In Lanjaron, we had time to sit by the pool before I had to go get ready for dinner. It was the perfect laid-back day to follow the busy visit to Granada.

On our final day of this trip, we drove up into the Alpujarras, the hills above Lanjaron, where the villages are high and remote. We visited a few of them, and walked from one to another along the GR7 before having our last outdoor lunch on a terrace looking out at the mountains.

Between trips to southern Spain, I had started reading Chris Stewart’s books about buying a farm in these mountains, which I found laugh-out-loud funny. (The first book is called Driving Over Lemons.) So it was fun to get walk the hills that he describes in those books.

I have also been reading Washington Irving’s Tales of The Alhambra. Irving wrote the book after his visit to The Alhambra in 1828 and it’s become a classic about Granada. He actually walked from Seville to Granada and after walking some of the GR7, I can better picture his journey. I love these words that he writes about it, and Spain in general:

Such were our minor preparations for the journey, but above all we laid in an ample stock of good humour, and a genuine disposition to be pleased; determining to travel in true contrabandista style; taking things as we found them, rough or smooth, and mingling with all classes and conditions in a kind of vagabond companionship. It is the true way to travel in Spain. With such disposition and determination, what a country it is for a traveller, where the most miserable inn is as full of adventure as an enchanted castle, and every meal is in itself an achievement! Let others repine at the lack of turnpike roads and sumptuous hotels, and all the elaborate comforts of a country cultivated and civilised into tameness and commonplace;

but give me the rude mountain scramble;

the roving, hap-hazard, wayfaring;

the half wild, yet frank and hospitable manners,

which impart a true-game flavour to dear old romantic Spain!

I join with Irving in many of his sentiments, perhaps especially packing “a genuine disposition to be pleased” for a journey and “what a country it is for a traveller!”

I’m excited to be heading back soon to continue my ongoing love affair with “dear old romantic Spain.”

The post Snapshots of Andalucia appeared first on Alison Chino.

Mini Walking Stories is a project I’m doing this month to catalog what has been an AMAZING year of walking. Every day during December, I’m going to choose one photo and invite you to come along with me for a few minutes on one of the walks I took in 2022. Read more stories here.

Secrets in Santiago de Compostela

I have walked into Santiago de Compostela on a Camino four different times.

Each time, I have stayed in a different hotel. I suppose I was trying to discover my all-time favorite place to stay.

And in March of this year, I think maybe I found it.

Our walking group was quite small, so we were able to squeeze into a boutique hotel that I had earmarked a long time ago. Usually my group is too big for this hotel. Also, it always seems to be booked, and now I understand why.

The hotel itself, a restored 18th century home, is gorgeous, with lots of fun, small details, like antique mirrors, exposed wooden beams, and bath tubs for soaking tired feet.

One of us stayed in the room on the top floor that had a window with peekaboo views of the rooftops of the city, including the cathedral.

We could hear the cathedral bells ringing from our rooms, and when we stepped out of the hotel, we were right in the middle of town.

But maybe the very best part of the hotel was that when we checked in, our hostess handed us a special map of the city. Of course, it was the same map that is available at hotels and tourist offices all around town, except that she had hand-written all over it, circling her favorite spots and pointing out do-not-miss corners of Santiago.

This hostess (and her map) opened up the city of Santiago to me in a way I had not previously experienced it on multiple other visits. Even with extensive reading about the city, I had not been to see most of her suggestions.

I had missed her favorite view of the town from Parque Da Alameda, even though I had visited the park.

I had not been to the Old Mercado or the smallest street in Santiago, nor had I seen the shadow pilgrim in the cathedral square at night.

We had a wonderful couple of days in Santiago exploring all of her suggestions.

With the constant arrival of pilgrims, Santiago seems to embody a perpetual spirit of celebration. My own (not really) secret of Santiago is that I find an empty cafe table in the square by the main cathedral entrance, order a drink, and sit there for a full afternoon. It’s some of the best people-watching in the world.

But now I have a whole collection of Santiago secrets for what I hope will be many future trips to the city.

I don’t want to spoil the secret of how lovely this particular hotel is, but if you are planning a trip to Santiago, drop me a line and I might just spill the beans. Be sure to book the attic room.

The post Mini Walking Stories: Secrets in Santiago appeared first on Alison Chino.

I told everyone to enjoy sleeping in on our day in Santiago de Compostela.

Eat breakfast whenever you like.

We’ll meet up later for the noon pilgrims’ mass, if you want. 

Also feel free to just get lost in the beautiful streets of Santiago.

COMPOSTELAS

Then I woke up early and concerned about everyone having enough time to get their Compostelas.

Compostela actually translates field of stars.

Because St James remains were reportedly found in a field under the stars, which guided his disciples to his remains.

But the Compostela is also the official certificate you get for walking the Camino.

The process to get the certificate has become a bit complicated due to COVID, so I hopped out of bed and ran down to the pilgrim’s office to see what was up.

I had already read that I needed to fill out a form online, so I did that and sent it to everyone else to fill out.

The office was just beginning to open and many pilgrims were already lined up, so I got in line and discovered that you were lining up to show one QR code but then you lined up to get a piece of paper with a number and another QR code. The second QR code took you to a website that showed you what number was currently being served, so you could leave and come back when they got close to your number.

My number was pretty high, so I walked back to meet anyone else who was up for breakfast and to encourage them to go ahead and start heading down to the office to get a number. Of course, I was not permitted to get extra numbers. Otherwise I would have taken numbers for our entire group.

So what started out as a fairly leisurely morning turned into me shooing everyone down to the office because I wanted everyone to go home with the certificates that they had earned.

At the office, they have a courtyard where you can wait for your number to come up and then when it gets close, you are permitted to go get in a socially distanced line inside.

When your number is called, you go into the office, present your number and your pilgrim’s passport, and retrieve your Compostela.

Because we sort of trickled into the office at different times, our numbers were fairly spread out. So when I finished getting my certificate I headed to one of my favorite spots in Santiago, the square in front of the cathedral.

CATHEDRAL SQUARE

I was actually headed to the cathedral in order to save everyone seats for the noon mass, but it turned out that it was already full before I had even left the pilgrims’ office, so there was no need to hurry. We would be attending the 7:30pm mass.

I was a little disappointed because I’ve heard that the botofumeiro, the giant gold censor that spreads incense throughout the cathedral during mass, would be more likely to swing during the noon mass. It’s actually totally unpredictable because it doesn’t swing at every mass. It’s used on holidays and special days and then on other days it’s arranged by different groups. So you never really know if it’s going to be in use.

But 7:30 it was. Which was also ok. We would have the day to wander. Everyone could do whatever they liked and then we could meet later for mass.

Since the day had opened up, I decided to find a seat in a cafe on the square.

There are several cafes on the main square and though you might pay a bit more for your coffee or your drink, it’s worth it for the views. I could people-watch all day from a corner of the cathedral square, and that’s exactly what I did.

The other gals came by and joined me one by one, after they received their certificates.

Similar to the garden back in Ligonde, the ladies came and went. And each time someone arrived we added another drink to the table.

We started with coffees and then moved to beers as the sun crawled higher and hit more of the square.

I gave directions for some shopping and then saw people’s purchases when they came back by.

I sat and watched people arrive from the walk, while having chats with whoever sat down at the table.

After a couple of hours, Mary Polly arrived. She was the last to get her number at the pilgrims’ office, so her number wouldn’t be coming up for a while. She had plenty of time before she would be called up so we went to find some gelato.

Eat gelato often is one of my favorite European travel mantras.

And I have followed this mantra with my kids on many trips.

Somehow it always makes them smile, no matter how old they are.

Then we caught up with a few other of our ladies. Most folks were doing a bit of souvenir shopping.

My mom and I both got new dresses in Santiago, which was fun.

Others were shopping for kids and grandkids and nieces and nephews. Laura even mailed a few postcards home.

Several of us stopped for a late lunch in one of the many seafood restaurants. We ordered lots of little plates to share and enjoyed a rest from walking around the town.

After lunch, I went to find a park I had seen on my map. I had not been to it on my last visit to Santiago, so I wanted to check it out. Janine came with me and we wandered around watching ducks and children play.

(I am always trying to find the green spaces in a city.)

We found a bench to sit on and enjoyed the afternoon shadows until it was time to wander back to the hotel and get ready for mass.

I had not been back to my room since I had woken up that morning worried about the Compostela so I was ready to get a shower and change into my new dress.

PILGRIMS’ MASS

We all went early to get in line for mass because so few people can attend with the COVID regulations. Even after we got in, we couldn’t find seats together, but had to spread out in chairs that were in the back of a row.

It was so different from how I remembered. The last time I went to mass in Santiago, it was standing room only. The whole church was packed to the gills with people lined along walls and leaning against pillars.

But of course it’s a different time now with the pandemic. Fortunately for anyone who was not able to get inside for mass, there was a large party going on in the square. A band was playing and dancers were performing. It was a beautiful evening and whole place felt full of joy, inside and out.

Of course, the vibe was a bit more subdued inside the cathedral. And since we’d lined up so early to get in, we had a while to wait in our seats before it began.

But eventually the music started and mass began.

We listened to the blessings being said over us even though we couldn’t understand them.

I went back and forth between trying to make out what was being said and closing my eyes and just taking breaths.

Then my mind started to wander.

I started to think how it was all a bit anti-climatic, this moment at the end of the journey.

Our rest day had been a bit of hustle and bustle, with some pausing in-between. But that is what the days of walking the Camino are like as well. Only less hustle. Just wandering step by step.

Towards the end of the service, I actually found myself wondering if we had really even needed to get certificates and attend mass.

Surely the walk had been enough.

The time together on the trail was what we came for.

And then all of a sudden a group of monks gathered around the ropes that pull the golden censor.

They lit incense and pulled the cords together.

And the botofumeiro swung.

As the smell of the incense filled the cathedral,  I took back all my thinking about not needing to come to mass.

I don’t know why, but it is a weirdly special moment to sit under the swinging incense. The experience illicited both laughter and tears from our party.

Somehow it felt like the completion. Maybe the blessing is more tangible when you experience it through multiple senses.

Every one of us will remember it always.

As we walked out of mass and up to the restaurant where we would have our last dinner together, the sun was setting and the sky was a glorious mess of colors.

Of course, the beauty and the blessing went on and on.

We ate dinner together and my sweet sister-in-law had our server put birthday candles on a piece of blueberry pie for me to blow out.

Then the group gave me a precious birthday journal in which they had each written sweet notes.

And they had bought me the painting that had made me cry just a couple of days before.

Such gifts. I had no words.

Now that painting is hanging in my home, reminding me multiple times a day of what an amazing adventure we had together.

PS. I am already planning to return to Europe next year! So if reading about the Camino is making you wish you could hop the next flight, sign up here for updates about when and where I’m going next.

The post Camino de Santiago Day 8: Santiago de Compostela appeared first on Alison Chino.

Sixth Day of Walking the Last 100 km to Santiago

20 kilometers

12.5 miles

Elevation:  378.78 meters up +   422.35 meters down

After a strangely wonderful night of sleep and a wonderful breakfast in town,

we gathered on the sidewalk for Laura and I to do our readings for our final day of walking.

Mine was from Carl Jung:

My pilgrim’s progress has been to climb down a thousand ladders

until I could finally reach out a hand of friendship

to the little clod of earth that I am. 

And this was my prayer for each of us. That we could befriend our true selves, who we truly are.

Laura read from Jeremiah 6:16, a verse that is widely accepted to be especially for pilgrimages:

Stand at the crossroads and look,

and ask for the ancient paths

where the good way lies,

and walk in it,

and find rest for your souls. 

Buen Camino, dear friends.

And with that we were off.

I had asked that we try to stick together on this day, or at least wait for each other before we entered Santiago.

So we took our time.

I think we all were reluctant for the walk to end, so we didn’t mind stopping often.

Sometimes we were stopping to wait until we were all together again and other times we just stopped because maybe this was the last tree or flower or church you might see on your Way.

I was giving thanks all day long for our walk, and for our group of women.

Throughout the pandemic, it has seemed like life (and especially travel) wouldn’t ever be normal again.

But these steps on this journey helped me to see that even though everything has changed,

there will still be a Camino.

There will still be walking.

There will still be travel and laughter and fun.

Even if it looks different, we can move through the world again.

I remembered that there is a lot of road walking on the final day into Santiago, but there are still forest paths too.

There is still beauty.

And of course, there are still cafes.

Because you are counting down to zero on this day, several of the cafes are named by their distance in kilometers from Santiago.

It seemed to me like the numbers decreased so quickly!

We got our first glimpses of Santiago before noon.

There it was in the distance, our destination.

I remembered some of the exact spots from my last walk, and when I reached this church, I went inside to pause in gratitude for each kilometer that each person had walked.

Some of these women had consented to come only because they knew they could take a taxi if their legs refused to carry them any further. They had even expected to need a taxi, but not one of them had taken one. They had walked every step of the way.

It seemed like just a minute ago, we were on our first day of walking and standing in front of the 100 km marker.

Yoshiko and Janine had actually missed the marker and they went back to get a photo in front of it, adding a few kilometers to their count for the first day. It was one of those moments that at the time seemed almost silly, like a waste of time, but that was only because it was the first day.

Because actually, no moment on the Camino is wasted time.

Yoshiko is my husband’s sister, and therefore a sister to me. She and her friend Janine have traveled all over the world together. They used to live just a few minutes from one another but now they live in separate cities and had not seen each other for a while. They had, like so many of us, planned to meet up again on this trip in 2020, so their reunion was all the sweeter because of the delay.

Having them along was such a treat. I’ve heard about Janine for ages, but never had the chance to spend time with her until this trip. And I always welcome the chance to see Yoshiko. Both of them are super independent travelers, so they would search out and find shops, cafes and food ahead of us, texting the rest of us to come join them for whatever treasure they had found. Often Yoshiko would text those of us in the back a picture of a menu in case we wanted her to go ahead and order something for us. And we often took her up on her kind offer.

Now we were stopping just 10 km away from the end.

Over 90 km stretched out behind us.

Onward we went.

And soon we reached Mount Gozo, the park that overlooks Santiago.

The last stop.

We circled the park instead of heading straight on ahead.

I wanted everyone to walk past the statues of the pilgrims who were joyfully looking towards Santiago.

So we made the circle up to the pilgrims and paused until everyone reached this mountaintop.

And then, of course, we made one last stop.

We had some lunch and snacks in a large cafe and park area at Mount Gozo that looked brand new.

There were many shopfronts that were still empty, as I think the space had been built for the Holy Year.

Before the pandemic, the numbers that were expected for the 2021 Holy Year were outrageous. More pilgrims than ever before.

But now this area looked like an Olympic Village after the Olympics have already finished.

The pope has declared that 2022 will also be a Holy Year so that people have a chance to re-schedule their Holy Year walks.

(Traditionally a Holy Year happens when St James Day falls on a Sunday.)

So maybe next year this village will be packed full of pilgrims celebrating their final day of walking.

Buoyed by our refreshments, we moved quickly together through our final kilometers into Santiago.

We were overjoyed to reach the signpost at the edge of town.

Now we only had to follow the arrows a little while longer.

We stayed right together as we walked the streets of Santiago.

We could see the spires of the cathedral almost the whole way.

Our happy little parade of nine made its way.

You never know what will meet you in the cathedral square, especially during a pandemic.

My first time in Santiago, I heard bagpipes.

But I have heard tales of parades and bands and all sorts of music being the welcome on your final stretch of the Camino.

We were still a little ways from the cathedral when I heard bagpipes playing, so I was grateful that there would be some kind of musical welcome at the end.

Almost every pilgrim finds themselves welling up with emotion as the cathedral comes into view.

Whether you have walked 100km or 1000km, you have completed a Camino when you arrive.

So tears were already flowing by the time we reached the bagpipe player.

Words can’t really describe the moment you reach the cathedral of St James.

It’s so massive that you can’t fit it in a photo.

Nor will a photo quite capture the stretch of the large square of pilgrims arriving.

But they were all around.

Some folks were sitting down with their backpacks just taking it all in.

Others were lining up to go inside the church.

We took a moment to hug one another and take a few photos.

Then we went inside briefly.

While wandering around the church, we realized how tired we all were, so we made our way to our hotel next.

It was time for a rest.

That night we ate a beautiful celebration dinner at Restaurant Carretas.

It was recommended to us by the host of our hotel for its seafood.

We had scallops and paella and salads and bread and wine and all kinds of beautiful things.

We laughed around the table and recounted our favorite moments of the journey to Santiago.

And then we headed back to the hotel to rest (and to take our COVID tests so we could fly home).

On the way back to the hotel, we walked through the square in front of the cathedral once more.

The spires were lit up against the night sky, and there was a band playing music in a corner of the square.

What a beautiful sight

at the end of a beautiful day

on a beautiful journey

in a beautiful world.

PS. I am already planning to return to the Camino next year! So if reading about the Camino is making you wish you could hop the next flight, sign up here for updates about when and where I’m going next. Or feel free to shoot me a message via the contact form on my about page to let me know you are interested in walking the Camino.

The post Camino de Santiago Day 7: O Pedrouzo to Santiago de Compostela appeared first on Alison Chino.

Fifth Day of Walking the Last 100 km to Santiago

19.5 kilometers

12 miles

Elevation:  382.12 meters up +   473.69 meters down

Earth is crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God,

But only she who sees

takes off her shoes.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I read this one simple stanza to our group as our starting prayer in the lobby of our hotel in Arzua before setting out.

Watching this group over the last several days, I had more than enough proof that each one of these ladies was indeed “she who sees.”

I had seen the photos they took in our shared photo album.

I saw them notice little details (spirals, logos, signposts) and big sweeping views.

The Camino is indeed “crammed with heaven” and it had commanded our full attention.

Some days you wake up inexplicably pregnant with tears.

Like you know they are coming at some point and you can’t put your finger on why.

This was one of those days.

I was just a bit weepy.

Maybe it was that I was getting close to Santiago after having been on the Camino for over three weeks.

Maybe it was out of a growing love and appreciation for this beautiful group of women.

Maybe I wasn’t ready for it to end.

Or maybe I was tired.

Who knows?

But somehow I walked with more reverence and awe on this day.

Everything felt connected.

Every step of the way overwhelmed me, mostly with amazement.

Sue Monk Kidd wrote that she first started going on retreat in order “to brush against the deep, intoxicating mysteries.”

Yes.

I feel this all the way to my bones.

It’s part of why I keep going back to the Camino.

When so many have walked these same steps in order to brush against the mystery,

you can’t help but encounter it yourself.

Somehow the grass was more green. The sky more blue.

The countryside was lovelier, and yet also it was the same.

When we stopped at a church,

I sat on a rock wall outside and watched people going in and out, lighting candles, saying prayers.

Touching the mystery.

We made a stop at an enchanting little cafe and shop.

We weren’t hungry yet as we’d had such a gorgeous breakfast at our hotel that morning, but a few gals got coffee and the rest of us went in to use the bathroom.

I came around the corner of the shop to a bookshelf and spotted a painting that made me gasp. Then I looked all around and scattered among the books and journals and cards, there were more paintings: sketches of pilgrim symbols, pilgrims on the Camino and pilgrims arriving in Santiago. Behind the counter, there were pastries and homemade cheeses and all kinds of treasures. A few more ladies found things they had to have, shirts and pins.

Tears had filled my eyes from the simple, sweet beauty of this well-appointed little shop and the art that adorned its shelves and walls.

I walked outside to wait for everyone and to just be with all my feelings.

I consented to the fact that I was just going to be emotional on this day.

I rode the roller coaster, looking around at the little courtyard.

And then up at the fig tree above me.

I was lost in my own reverie for a while, but I joined the others for photos when we all spotted beautiful horses just above the trail.

I had been carrying a small wooden cross from my aunt that I left at a makeshift shrine we passed in the woods.

And then soon afterwards, we passed the shrine to pilgrims’ beer, a place I remembered from 2015,

but there were tons more bottles now. They were everywhere, covering every possible surface.

It was still too early for a beer but Liz and I split one anyway.

I met Liz this past May when I was in Minneapolis visiting my sister-in-law and her family.

Liz is a colleague of theirs and we ended up sitting around and chatting one afternoon following their office workout session.

Somewhere in our conversation, I mentioned to her that I was walking the Camino.

And my sister-in-law was going with us as well.

Later she emailed me and told me she wanted to join us, and I was so grateful she did.

Her presence was a gift to our party in so many ways.

Liz began each day on the trail with an hour of silence. She let us know ahead of time that she was going to be quiet for the first hour of each day, so that we wouldn’t all be awkwardly trying to talk to her.

When she was ready, she naturally joined the conversation mid-morning each day.

I loved how she created this beautiful rhythm for herself, showing us all that we can choose to create what we want.

We labeled our bottle and Liz added it to the shrine before we set off again.

The others had gotten ahead of us, but we were catching up to them.

We followed the path through the woods and under chestnut trees.

Chestnuts were already falling on the ground, and many of their bright green casings were popping open from being trampled.

Underneath the layers, there were brown chestnuts.

I tucked a couple in my pocket. Memories of this day where all the world felt held together as ONE.

Memories of the mystery.

We caught up to everyone else when they stopped for a bite to eat. They were sitting behind a restaurant in another gorgeous courtyard, with a little pond and lily pads. There was a statue of St James and a large patch of grass. The place was calling for a blanket and a picnic. I found a spot in the sun to take it all in while folks found what they wanted to eat and drink.

Everyone had small snacks because we were still planning to stop a few kilometers further at a place that we heard had the “best tortilla on the Camino.”

So we made our way there next.

I think we still had 3 or 4 kilometers left but we went ahead and ordered our “end of the day” celebration beers with the tortilla.

We sat at a gorgeous outdoor stone table while we rested and laughed.

When the tortilla came, we sliced it into pie pieces and devoured it. And we agreed. It was the best tortilla on the Camino.

(I’m determined to figure out how to make it.)

At the end of our stop at O Ceadoiro, we struggled to get going again.

The afternoon sun was a little hotter than it had been on the other days, and we still had a little ways to cover.

But we left our happy table of empty plates and cups behind and pushed on forward.

Just the next step. And then the next one.

Before we reached the end of the day we came upon this marker and I remembered that when I was here walking the Camino in 2015, we had all woken up one morning to the sad news that one of our fellow pilgrims had been hit by a car on a busy road crossing.

In that same spot, a marker now serves as a reminder.

You always walk among us.

It was nearly 5pm when we finally reached O Pedrouzo, and our hostel at the far edge of town.

Our rooms felt rather dingy after the hotel in Arzua, and we had several of us in each room.

While everyone rested and showered, I left to go find a dinner reservation, but first I found a bench outside and looked up at the sky.

I took several deep breaths and let the emotions of the day be released. I cried the tears I’d been carrying around and also laughed at some of the absurd moments of the day.

I could not believe we would be reaching Santiago the next day.

Isn’t it wild how no matter how long we plan or anticipate a thing, 

eventually it arrives and passes? 

All too soon, we would be some of the pilgrims who have left a bit of themselves behind on the Camino.

Maybe someone else will feel our presence as they walk their Camino.

For probably an hour, I stared up at the sky from my spot on a bench.

Then I sat up, dusted myself off and went and found the beer garden where we would have our last pilgrim dinner before our arrival in Santiago.

PS. I am already planning to return to the Camino in 2022! So if reading about the Camino is making you wish you could hop the next flight, sign up here for updates about when and where I’m going next. Or feel free to shoot me a message via the contact form on my about page to let me know you are interested in walking the Camino.

The post Camino de Santiago Day 6: Arzua to O Pedrouzo appeared first on Alison Chino.

Fourth Day of Walking the Last 100 km to Santiago

14 kilometers

9 miles

Elevation:  301,54 meters up +   370.47 meters down

I woke up feeling so refreshed on this day! It must have been the swim in our albergue pool that did it!

We walked back up the street to have breakfast where we had eaten yummy ice cream the night before.

Everything was delicious. We had our usual fresh squeezed orange juice and cafe con leche, but also we had churros and pancakes and fresh tortilla de patatas.

We filled up for our relatively easy day of walking.

It was another beautiful day, and we walked up from breakfast to the town square in Melide where I read out loud a quote from one of my favorite Richard Rohr books (Falling Upward) to start the day:

Setting out is always a leap of faith,

a risk, in the deepest sense of the term, 

and yet, an adventure too.

The familiar and the habitual are so falsely reassuring,

and most of us make our homes there permanently.

The new is always by definition, unfamiliar and untested,

so God, life, destiny, suffering, 

have to give us a push, usually a big one,

or we will not go.

Someone has to make clear to us that homes are not meant to be lived in,

but only to be moved out from.

I congratulated this beautiful group of friends on getting out into the world to experience the unfamiliar.

On leaving home and comforts.

We were halfway through our walk, so some of the excitement could be wearing off.

And yet we still had a lot of unknowns in front of us to face.

Unknown foods and unfamiliar pillows.

New shower heads to figure out every day and more imminently,

many more miles to walk.

And so, onward.

We walked out of Melide and back into the forest.

Even with a few treated blisters and morning aches, folks were in good spirits.

We stopped in a church in our first village, and then carried on walking and talking down the trail.

Greeting the other pilgrims and the cows and cats and dogs.

We walked a mile or so with an extended family of hikers from the Midwest, listening to their stories of the Camino.

Two of them (sisters) had walked all the way from the beginning, and the rest had joined them for the last 100 kilometers.

On this day, my mom also decided to officially retire a pair of shoes that were bothering her. She had brought two pairs with her, so she could alternate. But this pair gave her a blister the day she wore them, so she thanked them for a lot of great miles and left them on a mile maker.

You often see shoes left on mile markers or even hanging on trees along the Camino.

We only had one or two hills on this day, so we played the Rocky Theme Song out loud on our phones to push to the top of them.

And then we stopped at a bar to celebrate once we crested all the hills. This bar had special coffees that included sweet layers and I believe we ordered up several of them among our group. Plus smoothies and sandwiches and cakes.

I felt like this day went by so quickly. It was another gorgeous day, with lots to see.

The day before I had been dragging a bit by the end of the day, but from Melide to Arzua, I felt like I could have walked twice as far.

I think it was partly just because of how beautiful the day was. The sun was out but it wasn’t hot. It was just one of those perfect days that you never want to end.

We reached the sweet village of Ribadiso in the early afternoon.

We took our time coming over the bridge and into the village.

We only had 2.5 km left to go, so we stopped in Ribadiso at the Milpes bar for beers and a soak in a foot fountain!

The views over the countryside from Milpes are so stunning. We stayed here and rested for a long time before getting up and heading on into town.

Mary Polly, who had gone on ahead, texted us from town and said that where we were staying was gorgeous, so everyone got excited to get to the hotel.

Since it was just over halfway through the week and we had a little more time (and energy) this afternoon, several of the gals wanted to do some laundry.

So into Arzua we went.

We walked through town and down some cute side streets before finding our hotel.

And truly, I think it is the nicest hotel on the whole Camino…

1930 Boutique Hotel.

I had found it online and booked it as a treat for our halfway point, and it did not disappoint.

Everything about it was beautiful.

It is sort of 1930s Paris themed. We all went to see each other’s rooms and explored the terrace in the back and the dining room on the top floor.

We ended up being able to book both dinner and breakfast here, which was a huge treat.

Everyone loved not having to walk to and from dinner at the end of the day.

Plus! Another cold salt water pool! Only two of us jumped in on this day, but it was a gorgeous place to sit around all afternoon for those of us not doing laundry.

Some ladies went shopping and others just rested in their rooms.

Before dinner, we went to mass around the corner, which was a treat. All in Spanish, we only caught bits and pieces, but it was a beautiful service and we were sprinkled with a pilgrim’s blessing at the end.

At dinner, it seemed like everyone was less tired than usual. Maybe it was the gorgeous day or the shorter miles.

Or maybe everyone was just getting used to walking.

I do think your body starts to adjust and get into the rhythm of walking all day.

Of course everything we ate was gorgeous. It all came out in several courses, mostly served family style.

Except we all got our own little amuse-bouche and dessert plates at the beginning and the end.

Most of it we ate too quickly to even photograph. It was a fixed menu, so it was a fun dinner where every so often, another round of surprises came out of the kitchen.

Delightful unfamiliarity.

Now it was only two more sleeps until Santiago!

Enjoy your beds, I told everyone, as they were for sure the nicest we would have.

Some folks save their nicest stay for the end in Santiago, but the hotels tend to be quite a bit more expensive there, plus there is so much to see in Santiago that I don’t want to be in my hotel very much. So it was fun to me to have such a lovely stay in Arzua.

The next morning we chatted some to the owner, who started building this hotel with his family six years ago, and then they opened 15 days before COVID shut everything down. Now that they have survived such a rough first year, I hope they will enjoy many years of welcoming pilgrims and travelers to their beautiful space.

PS. I am already planning to return to the Camino in 2022! So if reading about the Camino is making you wish you could hop the next flight, sign up here for updates about when and where I’m going next. Or feel free to shoot me a message via the contact form on my about page to let me know you are interested in walking the Camino.

The post Camino de Santiago Day 5: Melide to Arzua appeared first on Alison Chino.