Camino de Santiago

The route

The Camino Francés is the busiest and best documented of the routes to Santiago de Compostela. It runs 790 km from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, in the French Basque foothills, across the Pyrenees and then west through Navarre, La Rioja, the wheat plains of Castilla y León and the wooded hills of Galicia, finishing at the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. Yellow arrows and scallop shells mark almost every junction. This is not a wilderness route: villages, bars and water taps arrive at intervals of a few kilometres for most of its length.

The walking is long rather than steep. Roughly 12,000 m of ascent is spread over a month, and the highest point is the Cruz de Ferro at 1,505 m, in the hills before Ponferrada. Two days stand out: the Pyrenean crossing from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Roncesvalles, 25 km with about 1,200 m of climb, and the pull up to O Cebreiro on the Galician border. Underfoot you get farm tracks, compacted gravel paths built alongside main roads, and enough tarmac that footwear and blister management matter more than fitness.

Thirty-three days is the standard figure, an average of about 24 km a day, and 35 days is a comfortable version with a rest day in Burgos or León. The stage pattern is well established: Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Roncesvalles at 25 km, Pamplona to Puente la Reina at 24 km, Sarria to Portomarín at 22 km, Arzúa to O Pedrouzo at 19 km and a final 20 km into Santiago. The shorter figure of about a week that people often see quoted refers to the last 100 km from Sarria, which is the minimum distance for a Compostela.

The season runs from April to October. May, June and September are the steadiest months for temperature and daylight. July and August bring 35°C or more to the meseta between Burgos and León, where shade is rare and the stages are long. Galicia is green because it rains, in any month. Crowding is uneven: the first week out of Saint-Jean fills in late spring, the meseta thins out, and numbers spike again from Sarria onwards where short-distance walkers join. Holy Years, when the feast of St James falls on a Sunday, raise numbers noticeably.

Accommodation is a mix of municipal, parish and private albergues, plus pensiones, casas rurales and hotels in the larger towns. Albergues need a pilgrim credencial, stamped daily, which also serves as the record for the Compostela. Municipal beds are usually first-come, first-served; private albergues and guesthouses take reservations, and booking has become normal practice rather than a betrayal of the spirit of the thing. Between Sarria and Santiago in high season, walking on without a booked bed is a genuine gamble.

The route suits first-time long-distance walkers, people who like company and want the option of changing plans daily, and anyone who prefers villages to mountains. It also works well in sections, since bus and train links are frequent. It suits less well those looking for solitude, high alpine scenery or technical ground. If you have only a week, walking one section properly is a better trip than trying to compress the whole thing.