New times, new ways

La Jara is a new Camino to Guadalupe, a recently created pilgrimage route that forms an ecological and cultural corridor to unite this Toledo region with Puebla of Guadalupe. And it is not that the people of Calera y Chozas, Aldeanueva de Barbaroya or Campillo de la Jara did not visit La Morenita back in the 16th and 17th centuries, but if they did, they surely would not go along this route, since it corresponds to a railway clearing whose line was intended to be opened during the 20th century to unite the lands of Talavera de la Reina with Las Vegas del Guadiana. The central section of this road, the one that concerns the section between Guadalupe and the Santa Quiteria station, did not manage to secure financing for its platform, which has prevented its recovery as a Greenway Project; this is not the case with the other two sections, that of La Jara and that of Las Vegas del Guadiana-Villuercas, which do currently add to the hundreds of kilometers recovered with this model throughout the entire Spanish geography. Faced with the impossibility of unifying the entire route under the Vía Verde label, the Ministry of Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs, has chosen to link them with the construction of a Nature Trail, that of Villuercas, a project that is quite similar to that of Greenways in terms of structures and qualities, although obviously without starting from a railway line, but rather based on the recovery of public roads. For this reason, starting from the Minas de Santa Quiteria station, our new pilgrimage route continues to Guadalupe along the Villuercas Nature Trail, on a route steeped in history and great environmental appeal, which not only invites us to relive the Spanish railway past where, paradoxically, a train has never been seen, but also allows us to discover a historical and cultural heritage that is being rescued from oblivion, while we enjoy a unique perspective of natural landscapes declared Special Protection Areas for Birds (ZEPA) and Places of Interest Community (LIC). Therefore, we adopt this itinerary as one more of the Caminos to Guadalupe network, since by combining it with the open platform of the Villuercas Nature Trail, it allows these 110 kilometers of pilgrimage to be carried out entirely by bicycle; and even, without being an adapted path, it allows its use by people with reduced mobility. Although they do not represent the traditional pilgrimage routes to Guadalupe, they connect with the new times by introducing other models that, in essence, are as valid as the previous ones.