Spain's Sendero Historico: The GR1. John Hayes

      The Pyrenees from Lluçà (Section 7, Stage 1)

      The Sendero Historico (or GR1) is a trail that combines great scenery with a gentle lesson in Spain’s fascinating history. Spain has an impressive selection of long-distance paths and experienced Spanish walkers would tell you that this is the best of them – little known outside Spain as it may be.

      Traversing the north of Spain it sits in the shadow of world’s most famous walk, the Way of Saint James (the ‘Camino di Santiago’), and offers a completely different experience. The ‘Camino’ had one aim: to get pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela as quickly as possible. It’s a sort of medieval motorway. The GR1, on the other hand, is a relatively modern invention and it’s in no rush. There is nothing direct about this route. Designed for walkers, it meanders through some of the best scenery northern Spain has to offer and, at the same time, visits key locations in the development of modern Spain.

      Walking in Spain is a special experience. Spain was the last country in Western Europe to experience rural depopulation, and the remnants of an ancient infrastructure where everyone walked are still there. The GR1 follows paths and trails that, until the 1960s, were the main way people and their animals moved from village to village. Although, sadly, the days when every village had a bar, cantina or hostal have now gone, there are still just enough to make walking from place to place the best way to travel.

      Travelling from west to east across Spain, the Sendero starts at the Puerto de Tarna, a pass on the regional border between the Asturias and Castilla y León, heads east along the southern flank of the Cantabrian Mountains, the plain of Navarre and the foothills of the Pyrenees (‘Prepirinio’ in Spanish) and then finishes on the Mediterranean coast at Sant Martí d’Empúries near L’Escala. Although it’s a long walk, some 1250km, and mountainous, involving over 39,000m of climb, it’s not difficult. If you’re reasonably fit, the only thing you need to enjoy it is time.

      The route crosses six Spanish ‘Autonomous Regions’ – the components of what is a very federal country. The original idea was to establish a coast-to-coast walk from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, but the first two regions on the route – Asturias and Galicia – didn’t buy into the vision hence the Puerto de Tarna start. For those walkers who want to dip their toes in both oceans this guide describes how to extend the route to Finisterre and the Atlantic using other GR routes (see Appendix B).

      An important feature of mountain walking in Spain, unlike much of Europe, is that you don’t have to get above the tree line to enjoy wonderful views. Mountains at similar altitudes in France, Italy, Switzerland and Austria are more likely to be covered in trees, often commercial pine, than in Spain. In these countries you can sometimes walk for days without getting ‘a long view’. As in other countries Spain lost its trees (and topsoil) to agriculture and woodburning centuries ago, but because rural depopulation happened so much later trees have not yet returned to cover the mountains. There are, of course, some trees – beautiful natural ones – but not too many.

Topography of the route

      The GR1 starts near the Picos de Europa – the limestone massif that sits right in the middle of the Cantabrian Mountains, heading into Montaña Palentina and the Riaño Mountains. Although not as famous as the Picos these mountains have their own iconic peaks such as the Peña Espigüete (2451m) and Curavacas (2524m). After the Montaña Palentina comes the Burgos and Basque Mountains where the mountains are lower but just as dramatic in their own way. Depending on the ‘dip’ of the rock strata it’s a landscape formed of escarpments, ridges, cliffs and tabletop mountains or ‘mesas’. If you’ve walked in France you might be reminded of Jura or the Vercors, although this Spanish version is not quite as high.

      So far the route has stuck limpet-like to the southern flank of the Cantabrian Mountains with occasional views across the seemingly endless central plateau to the south. Leaving the Basque Country, and the Cantabrian Mountains, this grip slips and for three days the route takes you across the flat plain of Navarre. For most people three days will be enough, but by way of compensation you pass through Los Arcos, Lagran and Olite – beautiful little towns that sit on the plain like ships on an ocean.