STARTING POINT: VALENCIA
END POINT: ZAMORA
DISTANCE: 842 km
The Eastern Way of Levante starts in Valencia and joins the Silver Way as it reaches Zamora.
It runs through the inland territories of the regions of Castilla la Mancha and Castile and León, crossing the peninsula from southeast to northwest in a long route. This itinerary largely overlaps the Southeast Way and offers a great variety of reliefs, landscapes, culture and gastronomy as it runs across a large number of provinces.
In 1991 the “Asociación Amigos del Camino de Santiago de la Comunitat Valenciana” began recovering the Eastern Way of Levante and signposts were erected in 1993.
History
Quite similarly to the Southeast Way, this route received pilgrims arriving in the port of Valencia coming from other important Mediterranean ports, such as Naples, Palermo, Corsica, Sardinia, Mallorca, Cyprus, Greece, Rome, Jerusalem and Palestine. Once ashore, pilgrims headed for Santiago, going through Toledo and joining the Silver Way in Zamora. It is interesting to note that this same route was undertaken in reverse by pilgrims who wanted to visit the holy sites of the Holy Land or Rome. In sum, this great flood of pilgrims using Valencia as a sea port node led to the building of a large number of hospitals for pilgrims in the city.
Other recently created routes - such as Don Quixote, the Way of Saint Vincent Martyr or the Route of El Cid overlap or intersect at some points with the Eastern Way of Levante.
INFORMATION FOR PILGRIMS
Although it is a long road, it is mostly flat and perfectly accessible.
Accommodation for pilgrims is scarce, so it is sometimes necessary to spend the night in “hostales”.
Signposts are not as frequent as in other busier routes but it is not difficult ot find one’s way around.