Our Route
The well-known Mozarab Way was used by the Christians who
lived in the Arabic kingdoms to get connected to the Via de la Plata until
Santiago de Compostela. Being this route one of the oldest ones belonging to
the Way of Santiago.
The Muslim domination started at the beginning of the VIII
century over the best part the peninsular territory would end influencing the
religious life of the inhabitants of the old Visigothic-Christian kingdom.
Thus, once the news of the discovery of the Apostle Santiago’s sepulchre in
Galicia was spread, the Christians who lived in the territories under the
Muslim domination would try to go on a pilgrimage to Compostela. These
Christians received the name of Mozarabs and got to carry on with their faith and
consolidate their own religious culture.
During the intermittent periods of peace between the
Christian North and the Muslim South the pilgrimage to Santiago’s sepulchre in
Galicia was being forged. The itinerary followed from the Al-Andalus
territories, current Andalucia, used the communication routes established by
the Romans. The Mozarabs coming from Almeria, Granada, Malaga or Jaen merged
into the former Cordoba to continue from there to Merida through the main route
of communication.
These paths go along Roman roads, medieval paths and
livestock trails with a great transversal axis which departs from Almeria, gets
to Granada continues towards Cordoba and from here gets linked in Merida to the
well-known Via de la Plata. Other two Ways merge into this axis: the Way of
Malaga which does so at the village of Baena and the Way of Jaen, at Alcaudete.