Cross Country on Camino: El Cubo del Vino to Zamora

 "You don’t have to travel far to find magic. Sometimes, it’s just in the next moment."

Via de la Plata Stage 23

It was a mostly quiet night in the overflow albergue, but since there was no lock on either the bedroom door or the house, in addition to the fact that I felt like our room might be haunted by the ghosts of children past, I didn't really sleep too much.  There was no evidence to support my theory, but that didn't make the night go any faster.  We got up around 6:00 AM and made a quick breakfast of bread, jam, and instant coffee in our room, making as little noise as possible.  By 6:40 AM, we were ready to head out into the cool morning air. 

Departing El Cubo del Vino 

We began the day in El Cubo del Vino, roughly halfway between Salamanca and our destination, Zamora. The stage ahead was estimated at around 30 to 31 km, which is a respectable stretch for a day on the Via de la Plata.

As we left the village, the familiar soundtrack of rural Spain accompanied us: dogs barking in the yards, pigeons cooing from the rooftops, and the distant roar of traffic along the main road. We wandered through the quiet streets of town hoping to find a bar open for a café con leche, but, as often seems to be the case in these small communities, everything was still shuttered.

Another pilgrim was leaving the albergue at the same time as us, but he soon disappeared into the distance.  Within a few hundred meters, we had walked beyond the edge of town, crossed over the river, left the pavement behind, and were following a wide dirt track through the countryside.

Way of St. James

At first, progress was slow as the sky turned gold, pink, and red, and we stopped every few meters to take photos and admire the stunning beauty.  We watched as the sun's golden disc slipped above the horizon, amazed at how quickly it was rising. 

As if to celebrate the coming of yet another new day, the trees around us came alive with birdsong, and a rooster began calling from somewhere in the distance.

We made our way slowly down the tree-lined track.  Mist was rising from the pastures on one side, turning silver in the early morning light.  We could see the hot breath of the cows as they lifted their heads to stare at us, their metal bells clanking softly with every move.  At first, we couldn't figure out why it felt as though we were walking in autumn, but we soon realized the track had been cleared by fire, and the flames had browned the trees and shrubs on either side.

Soon, the tree-lined lane gave way to a hard-packed dirt road that took us out into the open country.  Our long shadows stretched across fields of lush green wheat, short dry grasses, and as yet unplanted squares of ploughed brown earth.  At times, it felt like everything had been simplified into blue sky above, golden brown earth below, and a thin band of pathway leading off into the distance. 

After so many kilometres along busy roads and alongside national highways, it was a relief to return to an agricultural track - especially at the start of yet another long stage. The path was quiet and peaceful; only a handful of other hikers seemed to be tackling today’s route, despite the albergue being full the night before. For most of the day, we followed a single set of footprints pressed into the muddy track, and glimpses of other trekkers were few and far between.

Spanish Countryside

As the morning progressed, we began to notice beauty in the details.  The braided pattern in the stalks of wheat.  The lines of ants moving busily across the sandy trail.  The intricate patterns of black, orange, and gold Fritillary butterflies.  The perfection of the brilliant red poppies that lined some stretches of the trail.  We stopped for a while to watch a flock of Little Ringed Plovers chasing a pair of Barn Swallows along the edge of a small pond.  There seemed to be life in every crack and crevice.

Around 2 hours into our walk, the landscape around us began to undulate, and we found ourselves climbing.  Clumps of bright purple Spanish lavender were mixed with yellow blooming gorse and broom along both sides of the trail.  Scrubby pines framed a path that was now much redder in colour than it had been. 

Eventually, we crested a hill and were rewarded with expansive views over the pastoral countryside.  Gently rolling hills descended into the distance, and we could spot the occasional village nestled among the folds and ridges.  The haze that partially obscured the horizon was a telltale sign of the rising temperatures and humidity that was to come later in the afternoon.

The dirt track wound gently across the landscape, threading through fields of young wine vines that stretched toward the horizon.

In this stage, one of the interesting changes has been the trail markers. They give the trail an interesting character, in addition to the more familiar yellow arrows and scallop shells. 

Along the way today, we began to see more of these tall recreations of the old Roman mileposts, inscribed with Mozambra and Via de la Plata. Some of the inscriptions, painted in red, remained legible, while others had faded beyond recognition. A few even included traces of Arabic script, adding a quiet, unexpected beauty to the markers. Some posts held a staff and a gourd alongside a metal hiking pole, while others stood bare.

According to the guidebook, this stage follows a mix of the historic Roman road and the Cañada de la Vizana, the transhumance route once used by regional Merino sheep herds. The gentle undulations of the land eventually brought us to our first, and only, town of the day, Villanueva de Campeán.

Villanueva de Campean

As we approached Villanueva de Campean, we stopped to photograph a beautiful abandoned estate or church in the field.   As we did so, we were passed by two pilgrims who waved and wished us a friendly “buen Camino” before continuing on.

Descending towards the village of Villanueva de Campean, which was around 14 km into the day’s stage, the landscape became even more colourful.  The gently rolling hills were blanketed in a patchwork of light green, dark green, yellow, rich brown, and bright red fields.  Our reddish track was once again bordered by white, yellow, purple, and red wildflowers, and everything shone beneath a brilliant blue sky.

When we finally arrived in the tiny community of Villanueva de Campaen, we passed two nice benches in the shade!  A rare sight on this Camino, and though we were tempted, we had hopes for cold drinks in town and so continued on  

Following the arrows, we made our way to the center of town.  This was another stop on the Wine Route of Zamora, and it offered an elegant-looking Casa Rural.  However, there were no bars or restaurants open to pilgrims, so we made our way to the church steps.  On top of its bell tower was a huge stork nest that had six or more White Storks circling around it and clacking their beaks loudly at each other.  As we sat there, two of the cyclists we met at dinner last night stopped by for a chat.  The storks were so noisy and active that they immediately became the center of everyone's attention.

Quiet Trails and Summer Temperatures

After a short break, we continued on following a paved road out of town and back out into the fields.  Crossing the expansive landscape, the temperature began to climb.  We kept ourselves in the moment by watching the hawks circling above, joined occasionally by extremely glossy Common Ravens. 

We had stopped to watch a Hen Harrier hunting in a nearby field when a cyclist stopped beside us and told us he had just seen an eagle hunting a rabbit in a field.  He said it was quite a fight because the two animals were the same size, and in the end, the rabbit escaped down the trail!  If we had been pilgrims in the Middle Ages, this would likely have been regarded as an important sign of something, and perhaps even warranted the establishment of a church or monastery.

Meseta on the Via de la Plata

A few kilometres later, we could see the church steeple and buildings of San Marcial directly in front of us.  In a very strange move, the Camino seemed to go out of its way to avoid going into the village, instead swerving around it.  We had been texted yesterday by others on the trail that the bar here was closed until the end of May, so we were likely missing nothing by diverting around it, but it still felt strange to actively avoid the only group of buildings sitting in our path in an otherwise landscape of open fields.

Anyone who has walked the Meseta section of the Camino Frances can likely imagine what the next 17 km felt like as we followed the seemingly endless dirt track across the fields.  By early afternoon, the temperature had reached 28°C, which for us is hot.  Owing to this, the landscape around us began to shimmer in the heat, as we set about simply trying to get the kilometres done. 

Around 10 km from Zamora, we caught our first glimpse of the city across the fields.  This gave us hope, but those final kilometres seemed to take forever.  For a short stretch of 3-4 km, we followed the paved road.  Though the heat of the sun radiated off the black pavement, giving us a hint of what summer trekking here would be like.  Thankfully, trekking on the wide, flat, hard-packed shoulder made walking this stretch quick.  

There was a village off to the right, which supposedly had a panaderia, but once again the Camino veered off onto a track, avoiding even the possibility of refreshment. We could have diverted over to the settlement on a nearby road, but in the heat, it didn't seem worth walking those extra kilometres on the very slim and likely unrealistic hope that the single bakery might actually be open on a Sunday morning.

Views of Zamora

Where the road met the track, we found a bench, the back of which was a yellow arrow with 'Peregrino Banco' written on it.  Sean always views these benches with suspicion, choosing to read them as 'pilgrim bank' rather than 'pilgrim bench,' referencing the large amounts of money pilgrims bring into the Spanish economy.  Nevertheless, as this was one of the only spots we'd come across today to take a break, we took a seat and had a snack of nuts and water. In the distance, we could see the buildings of Zamora.

Though Zamora looked close from here – perhaps only 5 km away – as we wove across the landscape, we soon realized that the town was more like 10 km in the distance.  

Monoliths

A few kilometres beyond Villanueva de Campeán, we came across a striking monument: three large stone pillars arranged around a shallow circular well. It immediately caught our attention, though there was no signage to explain its meaning. Later, a quick search revealed that this is the Tres Monolitos de las Tres Calzadas, or the Three Monoliths of the Three Caminos. Inaugurated in 2009 in the municipality of Entrala, the monument marks the confluence of three pilgrimage routes that cross the province of Zamora: the Vía de la Plata, the Via Mirandesa, and the Vía de la Dalmacia. 

Each monolith bears inscriptions describing the significance of its route, and the site as a whole serves as a tribute to peace and understanding among Islamic, Jewish, and Christian cultures. Standing four meters high and weighing eleven tons apiece, the granite pillars are accompanied by the Brocal de las Promesas, or granite curb of promises, where pilgrims can place stones as a gesture of hope and reflection. The inscriptions convey the values associated with each route: the Via Mirandesa as a road of friendship, the Jewish road as a path to freedom, and the Vía de la Plata as a meeting point of cultures in peace.

By this point, we were ready for the 32 km stage to be done.  It felt too hot under the relentless sun with no breeze, and we were ready to arrive.

However, we still had a stretch of exposed fields to cross, then we passed through a solar farm where the sun's rays were relentlessly reflected back at us from the large black panels, and finally we wove along the edge of a busy industrial park.  Eventually, we passed into an uninspiring strip of businesses and apartment buildings at the edge of town and made our way along the river amid a beautiful urban park.

Walking into Zamora 

Interestingly, Zamora sits on the banks of the Douro River, a waterway that we've met several times before.  This 897 km long river begins in the mountains of Duruelo de la Sierra in western Spain, and flows west until it reaches the Atlantic Ocean at Porto, the second largest city in Portugal.  We have crossed it three times previously - once while hiking through Porto on the central route of the Camino Portuguese, once when beginning the Camino Portuguese Coastal route, and once while walking the beautiful Camino de Madrid.  Today, when we enter Zamora, we will cross this mighty river for the fourth time on foot.

As we walked along the landscaped pedestrian walkway on the banks of the shallow, fast-moving Douro, we could see tall sandstone cliffs rising up on the far side. On top of this rocky escarpment was the historic city of Zamora.   A row of homes crowned the cliff tops, and behind them the Cathedral of Zamora stood. This town is home to 23 Romanesque churches, and we could see the outlines of a few as we made our way along the treed river walk. 

Zamora has a long history that traces back to the Celts and Romans, who used this hilltop as a defensive site.  Within its Medieval walls, Zamora is famed for having the largest concentration of Romanesque churches in Europe, earning it the nickname “the Romanesque City”.  Today, it forms part of the Transromanica, the Romanesque route of European Heritage, drawing visitors who come to trace the architectural and spiritual legacy of centuries past.

Eager to explore, we continued on, passing the remains of a beautiful, long bridge, which now lay in ruins.  Two Great Cormorants were perched on the ruins and rocks, gulping air to cool off in the afternoon heat. 

We crossed the new bridge into the old town and then began climbing the narrow cobblestone streets into the city centre. 

Accommodations 

The Camino navigated up a narrow winding street lined on both sides with colourful bars and restaurants. On this late Sunday afternoon, every table was filled with very well-dressed people who looked and sounded like they had just attended a wedding at a nearby church. 

We struggled up the steep hill to the Plaza Mayor, and following Google directions, we navigated the narrow streets to our hostel - only to find the door to Don Rodrigo Hostel closed.

We rang the bell, we called, and knocked with no result until all of a sudden, and to our complete surprise, it was opened by Max, an English pilgrim we've been walking with since Merida.  He told us it was an automatic check-in, and we needed to connect to their WiFi to get the door codes.  It turned out they hadn't actually sent us the code, and we were in no mood to struggle with this. I ended up phoning the owners, who only spoke Spanish, but very kindly helped us sort everything out.  Thank heavens for meeting Max and his letting us inside! 

Stepping into the Hostel, Max told us that “we looked shattered”  - at least we looked exactly as we felt.

We were soon taking showers to cool off, doing laundry, and then heading back out to explore a little of the town and find some dinner.  It had been a very long, hot stage, and we had pretty much decided to stay an extra day to explore further tomorrow.  It may seem crazy to take two 'rest' days so close together, but we are worn out, and the chances of our coming this way again are small.  

We will see what tomorrow brings.

See you on the Way!