Camino Real de la MesaWe went to Dolia to look at the Camino Real de la Mesa, the old Roman road that united León and Asturias. It has recently been signposted and we wanted to check it out because the last time we went it was practically impassable due to mud.
Dolia has been developed by an entrepreneur who has set up holiday cottages and a bar/restaurant that serves them. The village itself is a mountain hamlet with a bare dozen houses some of which are falling down and tourism should help to make the place viable in the future. However, the future is still a way off: there is no car parking; there is a distressing air of abandon with plastic and rusting agricultural machinery lying about; the bar was closed.
The Camino is well-marked with flashes of paint at points where you might take a wrong turn, but no work has been done to make the path more transitable. In places we had to climb the bank through brambles and gorse to skirt the deep mud that had been heavily trampled by the horses that are raised in the area. It also seemed that nature was laying claim to the path: we turned back at a point where a brook emerged from the hillside and claimed the path completely.
In conclusion, I would not recommend the Camino Real de la Mesa in this section for anyone without sturdy footwear and an adventurous spirit. It is certainly not accessible to families on an excursion with small children and with a variety of other walking options in the region it is hard to see how this historic path will achieve its potential without significant further investment in preparing the walking surface.
