Walking Spain

The walk starts in a wooded secluded area (where it’s easy to park) with a fountain between kilometers 18 and 19 of the CV-429 road. You start along an ascending path that joins up with the GR-7 after about 100 meters. You continue to the right through a copious pine forest and arrive at the…

Before I talk about the walk per say there are some observations I would like to make. As I’ve said in other blog posts, paths in Spain are very rocky and today was one of those days when we had a bit of everything. We had big slabs of rock, small and medium-sized rocks and…

Today’s walk had many different aspects to it. The first thing is that it was long (33,38 km). That wasn’t a problem but meant that I had to think about how I was going to do the walk and decided that I would concentrate not so much on the walking per se but just enjoy the…

The first part of today’s walk was going uphill leaving Cortés de Pallas (I was travelling north to south). The walk was on a tarmac road (very few cars/no cars). You climb up the road (quite hot despite it being March), winding and twisting until you get to a turn off on your right. There…

Today’s stage was incredible. I will add some photos below. It starts off easily enough on a straight flat path walking through olive groves and passing by some fantastic rock formations. When you get to the Rio Jucár, the path does a right angle and becomes quite narrow. As the path narrows, we enter a…

This stage was another lovely stage. I set off from where I got to yesterday. Today, I am going south to north which is the logical direction. You start by going downhill. You are practically a road, not a good road but it’s a road. You stay on the road for most of today’s stage.…

Today was another absolutely spectacular day. The sights were marvellous, probably the most dramatic sights I’ve seen so far on this walk. I was again travelling out from north to south and this time I was going uphill and on the way back from south to north I was going downhill. The path is easy…

During this stage, you go through the middle of infinite ravines in an extremely wild and lonely landscape. The desolate, harsh countryside and the scarcity of arable flat areas have made it one of the loneliest and most unpopulated areas in the entire province of Valencia. In any case, it is a delight to be…

Today’s walk was incredible. The area is so amazing, lots of “barrancos”, in other words, lots of gorges. Nature is very well preserved in this area. Nature seems to be pristine clean, it’s really fantastic. Today, I did the walk from north to south. The logical way I suppose would be to do it from…

Today’s stage from Casas de Benalí  to La Muela (Quesa) is a bit boring because the path is really a large unpaved road. The scenery is great, a bit of an eyesore some of the windmills (wind turbines) that you can see in the distance but we need the energy that they generates so can’t…

Today was an interesting day, it had all sorts of ingredients that made the walk extremely varied and it had its challenges as well. It starts off gently the walk and I started on the CV 590 I think it was 32.7 kilometres down that road. From the starting point, you go through first a…

This stage I did from north to south. In other words, I started at the end of the stage as it was easier logistically speaking. I started the route on the CV-590, km 32.7 (next to a signpost clearly indicating we were on the GR7), visiting the following places (within the area of Enguera): Serra…

The walk today was absolutely brilliant. You walk up the bed of a stream/river, up the Barranco de Boquella and well it’s incredibly beautiful because there are steep red rusty coloured walls to this gorge. In the walls of the gorge, you occasionally see caves and I have to stress how absolutely beautiful this valley/gorge…

The stage runs almost entirely over the Sierra Grossa, which is part of the Baetic system, nearly 600 kms long, the largest system of mountain ranges in the Iberian Peninsula. The main highlight of the day is the ascent up to the castle (not much left of the castle), but it has magnificent views of…

The stage begins at Fuente de la Morera which is just off the local road CV655 and about 12 km from Ontinyent. Nearby there is a Hermitage / Ermita of the same name. It is really a full-blown church. Below is a photo (and a video) of the place as it is quite interesting. Fuente…

This stage starts on a paved road until you get to the Hermitage of Santo Cristo. Soon, after this, the tarmac ends. You continue along a dirt road with several crossroads, but they are well signposted, until we turn left onto a path that leads us downhill to the Fuente (fountain) de Ballester. Nice place…

This is the beginning of a long journey. The first stage of this journey takes me from Alcoy to Bocairent. To get to Bocairent, you cross over Sierra Mariola which is a beautiful natural park. It is very well-maintained. The traditional GR7 route is over 30 kms long and you go up Montcabrer (a literal…