janjmoz

[janjmoz]

Granada to L’Escala

A very early start today as we were on a 7am train to Córdoba. Today’s trip felt much easier than the trip down to Almeria. Essentially we had 3 train trips and then Martijn met us in Girona and gave us a lift to L’Escala.

The day passed without incident and fairly comfortably. It was pretty much 12 hours door to door. We were shocked by how cold it is in L’Escala and of course the apartment is pretty chilly having been shut up for 2.5 weeks.

We headed out for a welcome home drink and bought some nibbles and wine for dinner at home while we caught up on some of the cycle racing.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sad our adventure is over. I was a little worried I’d built it up and would be disappointed but I absolutely loved it and can’t wait to get back on the Camino next year. So for now we’re signing off on the Mozárabe Way and tomorrow we’ll be back on Where in the World.

[janjmoz]

Back in L’Escala

[janjmoz]

Granada - day 2

Happy St George day, the day in Spain for giving books and roses. I have to admit we had completely forgotten but we got a lovely message from Marjolein this morning.

Before I launch into our day I should preface by saying this is about our 5th time in Granada. It is a city we love and are quite familiar with so we’re not doing the tourist must dos. However if you’re ever in this part of Spain I would highly recommend a visit.

We indulged Jose with another churros breakfast, well we’re on holiday. A bit later we headed out for a very welcome massage. Jose found a Thai massage place that had great reviews. It was a lovely mix of relaxing, stretching and remedial massage - perfect. When we walked out I was almost walking normally.

We then headed to a cafe I had spied on the way that did gluten free cakes. We both indulged in a slice of cheesecake with a peanut butter and chocolate topping (not Nigella but still very nice).

After that we went for a bit of a walk, did a bit of shopping and then found somewhere for lunch. Lunch was delicious- it’s a good thing we head back to L’Escala tomorrow, at this rate I’ll have regained the weight I lost on the Camino.

After lunch we headed back to our apartment for a shower to wash off the massage oil and a bit of a chill before heading out again for our last wander and drink in Granada. We’ve had some great vermut while we’ve been here.

Back to the apartment to pack and then chill with nibbles and a bottle of wine in front of the tv. It won’t be a late night as we have an early start in the morning. The holiday is definitely coming to a close 🥲

[janjmoz]

Wandering around Granada

[janjmoz]

Lunch and tonight’s vermut

[janjmoz]

Granada day 1

A sleep-in this morning, we were both obviously quite tired. After coffee and some phone time in bed we headed out for breakfast. Again we marvelled at how late everything opens down here. Frankly walking outside your front door before 9am is a waste of time.

Anyway after a little faffing around we had breakfast at the bar opposite us. It’s a churrería and they did good churros. I had a very nice croissant. After breakfast we headed back to the apartment as Jose needed to catch up with the goings on in Narrabeen.

Late morning we headed to the market which was now actually functioning, though still looked a bit empty as apparently none of the fresh seafood shops open on a Monday, which makes sense when you think about it.

We stocked up on cheese, jamón and chorizo and the indulged in a homemade vermut at one of the bars. Very nice and a delicious tapas to accompany it. They really do take their complimentary tapas seriously down here. Good thing it was a couple of hours to lunch.

Back to the apartment for a bit more work for Jose and chilling out for me before we headed out for lunch. We decided to stay local and avoid the tourist traps and had the menu of the day. After lunch we went for a walk and managed to get the stamps in our credentials that were eluding us yesterday.

We both had a nanna nap this afternoon and then headed out to a couple of bars. It would have been sooo easy to just stay at home 😬. We’ve noticed they have a habit of adding gin to their vermut here. Hallmarks of a messy night so in our second bar we had cava.

Around 7pm we felt it was respectable to head home and into our pjs for some nibbles and wine. We struck gold on tv as the Laureus World Sports Awards were on as they are in Madrid this year. A young Aussie girl (Arisa Trew) won Sports Action athlete of the year for landing a move only Tony Hawk could do and she’s only 13, awesome! I suspect it’s not going to be a late night 😉

[janjmoz]

The entry to our accommodation, breakfast, vermut at the markets and general Granada

[janjmoz]

Quentar to Granada

18km in 4:30 hours walking time, about 500m of elevation and a lot of downhill.

We met Jean Charles (I was close) for breakfast in the bar we’ve spent all of our time in, in Quentar and then headed out to begin the walk to Granada.

Another lovely day of walking though quite chilly at the start. Also there’s a lot more vegetation now than when we started in Almeria and after last night’s rain it was quite wet.

We spent a lot of the day walking beside a river. Again today’s walk was quite popular with gravel riders. There wasn’t much in the way of villages along the route so about 8km in we stopped for a snack break.

It was quite a shock to the system arriving in a city, particularly one crawling with tourists on a Sunday. It did make the ending a bit anti climatic as we struggled through the throng of people and couldn’t see the way markers.

We did find the cathedral but even there they couldn’t stamp our credentials until tomorrow. A bit nonplussed the three of us took ourselves off for a celebratory drink. Jean Charles is continuing on the day after tomorrow. I hope he finds other pilgrims to walk with.

We bid Jean Charles farewell and then headed off to find our accommodation. It’s got a very typical entry courtyard but then inside is quite dark, something we’ve discovered is emblematic of houses down south. I guess it keeps it cooler in summer.

We had lunch at a bar at the end of our street then emptied our backpacks, washed ourselves and our clothes and relaxed watching tv.

Tonight after some grocery shopping we tried out a couple of bars before indulging in a delicious Moroccan meal in the Arab quarter. Granada has some much history which makes it such a vibrant place.

We added up our kilometres walked and it seems my 217km was a bit out, we’ve actually walked 205km to Granada leaving us 1,190km to Santiago de Compostela.

[janjmoz]

Today’s walk

[janjmoz]

Arriving in Granada

[janjmoz]

Evening in Granada

[janjmoz]

La Peza to Quentar

29km in 7:20 hours walking time, about 850m of elevation and a lot of downhill.

We left around 7:20am this morning knowing it was a long day and there was a chance of rain. Today was another beautiful day and for the main part the walking wasn’t too hard.

After leaving La Peza we were on a gravel road for about 6km before joining a path that ran next to a road. The road was cyclists paradise and there were a few motor bikes as well.

We eventually came to a decision point. Today could be split into two short days, which we weren’t keen to do. We were however keen to head into the town for a coffee, snack and loo stop before heading back onto the Camino. This added about 1km to the day. While we were walking into Toćon we were watching the cyclists and then we saw some Movistar riders with a team car going through their paces - so excited!

After leaving Toćon we had a lovely walk through fields full of wildflowers before getting back onto the Camino which then took us again onto a great gravel road. We seemed to be in a geopark as there were people hiking and we saw a group of about 30-40 women who were on an organised gravel tour. Apparently it started in Granada and is about 700km long.

After a long downhill followed by a long uphill we stopped for lunch at an abandoned mine site. I’m not exactly sure what they mined there but parts of the path looked like they had talcum powder on it.

Not long after lunch we hit the highest point of the whole Mozarabe Way and then a very long descent. While we were having lunch we’d been checking out the dark clouds and thought we might be lucky and it would miss us. As we started the descent we were in brilliant sunshine but could hear thunder all around us. There were spectacular views on the descent but we didn’t take too many photos as we were worried about the weather.

Finally we entered town, still descending (knee not happy) and we started to get a few spots of rain. We found our hotel and by the time we’d checked in and headed back out for a drink the rain was starting to settle in, we were so lucky.

While we were having a drink our fellow pilgrim from last night arrived (his name is maybe Jean Claude and he’s French living in Belgium). He left this morning before us so we were quite shocked that he’d only just arrived. Turns out a group of the female gravel riders had stopped at our turn off and were covering the signs so he went the wrong way. Poor guy added about 7km to an already long day.

After a shower we met maybe Jean Claude for dinner (ridiculous I could pretty much tell you the man’s life history but hazy on his name). We had a pleasant evening and we’re meeting him for breakfast in the morning and starting out together. Seems he’s met no-one on the Camino. It’s a shame, if he’d started a day earlier he would have been in with our crowd. Thankfully he speaks very good English.

[janjmoz]

This morning’s walk

[janjmoz]

Lunch and into Quentar

[janjmoz]

Guadix to La Peza

22.8km in 5:20 hours walking time and about 550m of elevation.

A beautiful walk today. As we headed out of Guadix it was quite chilly. We seemed to be getting a cold wind off the mountains. The sky was also looking very threatening in 3 directions, thankfully we were headed in the fourth.

After walking out of town we were very quickly in pine forests and amongst spectacular scenery. We passed through 4 towns in quick succession. We had thought we’d be spoilt for choice for coffee stops but we didn’t see an open bar until the last town, which came after about 3 hours and 13km of walking.

We had a nice relaxed stop in the bar in Graena before tackling the last 10km. As we’ve walked through the towns we’ve seen loads more cave houses. From Graena we were in pretty quiet roads for a while and then we hit a river bed. The scenery was still good with vineyards now appearing, but the river bed was quite loose and uphill so the going was a bit tough.

Apparently La Peza has a lot of boutique wineries popping up bringing back some of the ancient, forgotten grape varieties. Unfortunately the bar we went to had no local wine and we haven’t seen a winery today. Looks like tasting the local wine will have to wait until another time.

We stopped for a tea break and snack under a bridge before coming out of the river bed and back onto another very quiet road. We saw one cyclist and both agreed it would be a magic road to cycle on.

So we trudged up the road enjoying the scenery until we finally turned onto a 4WD track for the descent into town. Great excitement when I spotted the 150km marker. I’m thinking now we must have just missed the 100km as we could very easily have strolled past this one and missed it. Only the 50km has been mentioned in the guide.

Tonight’s albergue has hospitaleros again, a lovely older couple from Alicante. We were the first pilgrims in and got to check up on the progress of our mates who are now a day ahead of us. Unfortunately the French lady (Frederique - I’ve only just learnt her and Juanjo (the Mallorcan) names in the last two days, typical) is unwell and as this next stage is quite long she took a taxi to the next stop.

So we had the pick of the beds, made some lunch, showered and washed our clothes in a washing machine 🎉 As it turned out only one other pilgrim showed up so we had a room to ourselves.

In the afternoon we went to the only open bar in town for a couple of drinks before heading back to the albergue to read before dinner. Dinner was a very modest affair though we did have some wine and I was definitely full at the end.

A bit more reading and then time for bed, tomorrow is a long day.

[janjmoz]

Heading out of Guadix

[janjmoz]

This morning’s walk