The Route

Spain - Northmost (A) to Southmost (B)

The route starts in Estaca de Bares, Spain's most northerly point, a cape jutting out spectacularly into the Atlantic, and reaches its end at Tarifa, where Spain nearly touches Africa. As the crow flies some 884 kilometres or 549 miles lie between these two extremes of Spanish geography, but for the land bound walker, obliged to pass round mountains, and over rivers and lakes the distance to be covered is more like 1,300 kilometres, or 807 miles.

Having decided to walk across Spain from North to South I set about trying to find a route, and was rather pleasantly surprised to discover that there is in fact an ancient way that runs from Seville to the North coast, pretty much covering most of my intended journey. This route has existed since time immemorial but apparently was at its most impressive in the time of the Romans, linking Hispalis (Sevilla) to Gijon on the Atlantic (100 miles to the East of Estaca de Bares); the way is still covered with Roman remains and parts of the original road.

Perhaps even more luckily it is still in use today, now being known as the Ruta de la Plata, the Silver Route (more on the name another day...) and has become one of the many pilgrim routes to Santiago de Compostela. The pilgrims reach around Astorga, near Leon, and turn left to join the other trails running to Santiago.

The Romans were on the whole considered pretty good road builders and adept at choosing the easiest and fastest route between two places (important when you need to move armies around to put down rebellious uprisings of Iberians in a far corner of the empire) so it seems a logical choice to follow in their footsteps and use the Ruta de la Plata as the main section of my trek.

The plan therefore is to drop down directly South from Estaca de Bares, and join the Ruta de la Plata near the small town of Melide, once there I'll turn against the flow of the pilgrims flocking to Santiago to head East, then South, down the "spinal column" of Spain as it's been described, until I reach Sevilla.

From Sevilla another Roman road leads to Cadiz on the Costa de la Luz, and a return to the Atlantic, which will no doubt be a hazy memory by that point. After dipping my feet in the ocean, the final stretch is a stroll along the beach to Tarifa, if a 100 kilometres can be described as a stroll.

807 miles, four Spanish autonomous communities (Galicia, Castilla y León, Extremadura and Andalucía), and five weeks to do it in.

PS The map is from Google (thanks!) - they've got all the copyright and that sort of thing.