The Road from Santiago

    We are off to a cathedral - the very one that muscled out Baza.  Probably time to bury the hatchet.  It is all you could hope from a Spanish Cathedral that Gaudi hadn’t got his hands on. It is big and boxy and with lots of curly and columny bits added to it - with spikes and the occasional window. The site had a Visigoth Church on it. Then the place got turned into a Mosque. In 1489 the Armies of Ferdinand and Isabella turned up and Pope Innocent V III turned the church into a cathedral.  Seventy years later Diego de Silow was given the job of designing a new cathedral and so began. It stopped in 1574 - when they ran out of money - but began again twenty years later.  They were still working on it in 1731 - so, not a rush job.  They have a replica of Michelangelo's Pieta. Twelve hours ago Manu reckoned ‘ A beautiful cathedral, although somewhat neglected in some areas and poorly maintained on the exterior.’   Alan liked it ‘Surprising.  I...

We are going to head into Guadix today. I think we had better, despite what they did to Baza’s bishopric. We are first nipping under under the N-342 and heading down a camino de Servicio - see, I said we would use the term and we are. Turning south we are going under the motorway again and passing the station at Guadix.  It has a spaced service. At the time of writing the first train seems to be the 7.39Am to Granada and a 9.41am Madrid.   The 12.19pm goes to Almeria but don’t rely on this when making your travel plans.  Damon summed it all up saying ‘Train station with no extra services. There are restrooms and a ticket machine. Train to Granada, Almería and connections to other areas. Safe neighbourhood but only a few options for travel.’  Two weeks ago Ana wasn’t happy. ‘A beautiful station, but very neglected in terms of hygiene. The restrooms lack toilet paper, not just once, but countless times... and the overall cleanliness leaves much to be desired. It's a sh...

  Yes, i went past the turning so we are going to have to go back and under the main road.  Today is going to be one of those days when we are going along the track beside the motorised road but with a difference. This one has a sign, a speed limit [20km] and a name - Camino de Servicio.  Now class, I want you to learn that because that is what we will call them from now on.  We will also pass a sign that says ‘Vado Inundable’  This means Floodable ford.  We are going to cross a dry river bed.  Now I want you all to keep a look out for it.   We won’t actually get to see much until the end of the hike.  Inland a bit is the Puente del Grado.  Given Grado is a town in Asturias on a more or less 20o slope and a long, long, street out of town I am not sure f the connection.  It is another girder railway bridge.  Rainer wrote ‘ A curious site, the 1884 railway bridge now in the middle of nowhere. A monument to the sad abandonmen...

  We are turning back on ourselves because I missed the turning. It will mean we won’t go to the Hotel Villa de Gor.  Come on, that does sound like a Hammer House film; probably in Hammer’s waning period.  Before we do that, yesterday we went past an oddment, there is a picture, and I thought I better tell you about it. On top of a former railway bridge pillar is a statue of Jesus. Vlad has described it for us .’The structure on which the Sacred Heart of Jesus sits is the support for the previous bridge over the Río Chico on the old railway line from Guadix to Lorca. Today, that bridge is located in Dúrcal and is known as the Tin Plate Bridge, the only cantilever bridge in Spain belonging to the Eifel school. It was removed due to fears that it wouldn't support the weight of the railways due to the unstable terrain. Passengers on foot were made to disembark on the other side of the bridge over t he Gor River, and the route was later changed. This was the reason for its sa...