I am sure you know some of the best-known Caminos de Santiago. The French Way, the Primitive Way, the Northern Way, the Lebaniego Way… Everyone walks through the north of Spain. The French one runs by its south side, and the others by the north one. All of them have been awarded as World Heritage Sites.
Are these all the roads of Santiago that run through the Cantabrian? Well, that is not true, there are more variants, some of them are known more than others. The Salvador Way, for example, links León with Oviedo, and it is a very interesting route that mixes nature, mountain and culture. In Asturian Ways, we are focused on offering you these pilgrim ways, because they have no many tourists, and you may feel what old pilgrims might do. Therefore, the Santiago way was a mixture between religion, culture and politics in equal parts.
Today we bring you a little-known path, from which there are hardly any written references. This way has been discovered by Clemens and Clodette Sweerman, who have been publishing a guide of the Pilgrim Way for more than 10 years. It’s called “St.Jacobs fietsroute, langs pelgrimswegen naar Santiago de Compostela”, in which they defend the historical importance of Ibias as a way back on the Camino de Santiago. They assure that there are written evidences of Central European pilgrims who came back from Santiago, via Fonsagrada, Ibias, Degaña and Villablino, avoiding the snowy weather in the Villafranca – O Cebreiro area, and, besides of that, they may walk in a shorter way.
The truth is that in Ibias there are written references from two old Hospitals (so called the pilgrim hostels) and there is a pilgrim shell carved in stone and other symbols typical of the pilgrimage in San Antolín de Ibias Church.
It is a pleasure for us that this Dutch couple has done a great job, discovering us a Santiago Way that was really forgotten.
Would you like to discover it? On our Asturian Far West Tour we will know the areas where this path was sure to pass.
Can you afford to miss out
The information is obtained from the Ibias Council website and an article from La Nueva España (a local newspaper). As far as we learn Dutch, we promise to read the book. And we will invite the Sweermans to an Ibias wine. What less.
http://asturianways.com/en/tours/asturian-far-west
