Pablo Vidal-González
Full Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology
Hiking and Mountain Sports Research Group: Health, Inclusion and Society
Catholic University of Valencia
Valencia, Spain
Los caminos en Europa han sido y siguen siendo elementos de comunicación, que permitieron poner en contacto a unos con otros. La construcción de esos senderos, muchos de ellos milenarios, iba acompañada de multitud de construcciones auxiliares que facilitaban el paso de los caminantes, viajeros, peregrinos, comerciantes y soldados. Junto a los innegables atractivos de la naturaleza que recorren, los caminos europeos muestran también la huella de todos los pueblos que por ahí transitaron a lo largo de la historia.
It seems obvious, but roads have had and still have as their main purpose to communicate one place with another. From each village, from each isolated farm, a series of roads used to communicate, to link, with other towns, villages and scattered habitats.
We found in the Sierra de Espadán, in Spain, a Roman inscription from two thousand years ago, which refers to a road, a Roman road, which passed through this mountainous territory. This is just a small example of the vast network of roads, of cattle trails, that the Romans built to communicate all corners of the Empire. “All roads lead to Rome”, as the popular saying goes.
The roads were the links, the communication routes, that ran through the countryside. The people who traveled them, on foot or on horseback, entrusted themselves to divine protection. At the exit of each road, in each village, there was a small hermitage or a cross built for the traveler to ask the Saint for protection against the dangers of leaving civilization and entering inhospitable, mountainous, uninhabited places. The roads were built and repaired for generations, since keeping the paths in good condition was indispensable for the circulation of provisions, people, news and ideas. This repair was entrusted to the residents of each municipality, of each town.
For this purpose, there was a municipal tax, which we now pay in money, called the “jornal de villa”. They were a few days a year, two or three, in which the neighbors worked for the common thing, fixing irrigation ditches, roads or other facilities of public use. This custom has maintained historical roads, many of them millenary, along which a multitude of people traveled from one town to another, to the market, to the fair, to the festivities, to a burial or to get married.
The paths were lined with fountains, resting places, trees that offered shade to the traveler, shelters for shepherds, as well as farmers’ and ranchers’ houses. Everything was connected. Historically, a pedestrian, a letter carrier, traveled these roads daily to carry correspondence, mail, notices and news, from one place to another.
With the abandonment of rural life, caused in Spain by the late industrialization and the march to the cities from the 50s of the last century, many of these historic roads were abandoned, ceased to be maintained and were replaced by roads. All this heritage was endangered and only thanks to the new use proposed by hiking have they been able to recover.
The revitalization of the Camino de Santiago, in the north of Spain, or the creation of Gran Recorrido trails (the famous GRs) have done nothing more than recover these historic paths that were used by hikers and pack animals. These paths are full of heritage elements of great interest: bridges, castles, towers, fortified farmhouses, shepherd’s huts, fountains, hermitages, shrines, crossroads and many more.
These paths, built and trodden for centuries, are an additional incentive for the modern hiker, as they allow him to combine the rich natural heritage, but also an exciting cultural heritage. Each village through which they pass is an inexhaustible source of heritage elements. Just as a note, let’s take into account that Spain has more than ten thousand castles.
It is interesting to compare these historic trails (remember that we have preserved pilgrimages that travel the same mountain trails for more than 800 years), with the exciting trails of, for example, the United States or Canada. They are trails of great value, as they pass through places of great environmental interest, magnificent scenery, vast lands of wilderness and wildlife. However, they have mostly been designed specifically for use by hikers from the 19th century to the present day. While many of the trails in Europe allow enjoying the rich cultural heritage, the constructions made for centuries, by generations and generations of people who lived, walked and traveled through these places, leaving countless traces of their passage.
Reference
Vidal-González, P. (2020). Hiking in European Mountains. De Gruyter. ISBN: 978-3-11-066084-5