The “Ruta de la Plata” ("The Silver Route") is a pilgrimage route (of roman origin) which begins in Sevilla (Andalusia) to Santiago de Compostela (Galicia) , crossing Spain from south to north following the border with Portugal (see map below) and going over beautiful historical cities as Sevilla, Zafra, Mérida, Cáceres, Plasencia, Salamanca, Zamora or Ourense. It is 1050 km long but it is quite easy to do it if you are a fit person. It is signed with yellow arrows that you will have to try to follow until Santiago (but be sure that you will lose them several times!).
We (María, Roser, Bea, Juan Carlos and me) made this route in July 1998 following the book of J.F. Cerezo “La Ruta de la Plata” (pub. SUA, Bilbao). Nowadays you can find some better books of this route in the spanish bookshops. We spent 15 days to do it, sleeping in Sevilla, Sta. Ollala del Cala, Zafra, Mérida, Cáceres, Plasencia, Béjar, Salamanca, Zamora, Tábara, Mombuey, Vilavella, Xunqueira de Ambía, Ourense, Lalín y Santiago. It is quite easy to find a cheap room anywhere because it is not as overcrowded as the clasical “Camino de Santiago”, so you do not need to carry your tent or the sleeping bag.
You can make this route at any season except in winter (Castilla can be very cold in winter). If you do it in summer Andalucia and Extremadura (in the south) can be very, very hot (> 40 Cº), but you can avoid the heat getting up very soon (we begun to cycling at 6 a.m) and finishing the trip around noon (then you will understand the meaning of the spanish word “siesta”).
