Start anywhere before Sarria and walk any time but summer. The Camino is a rare chance in the busy world for solitude and self-reflection. Plus, filling your scallop shell with local red wine at Bodegas Irache Wine Fountain, a relatively new Camino tradition, has quickly become a classic. Logroño to Burgos, in particular, is known for world-class La Rioja wines and hearty Castilians ones. The middle of the route, from Pamplona to Sarria, offers distinctive wines. Walk the stretch from Pamplona to Logroño (the most unusual churches) Logroño to Burgos (for miracle-based and Camino Saint-built churches) Burgos to León (classic Romanesque, Gothic, and Mudéjar churches built for some of the most miracle-working Marys) and Sarria to Santiago de Compostela (quirky small village churches). The entire Camino is nearly 500 miles long (and 600 miles if you continue to the ocean), but if you’re looking for a segment that gets your heart rate up, try Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Pamplona, Leon to Sarria, and the Camino Finisterre, all of which offer mountainous terrain, or the stretch from Burgos to León for high plateau meseta terrain. It’s a powerful moment to lay a stone at Cruz de Ferro on Monte Irago, the Camino’s highest point, as you silently enact a ritual of gratitude, forgiveness, or letting go. They left signs-stone tools, painted caves, rock art, dolmens, hilltop settlements, prehistoric roads-and, only later, medieval towns and chapels. Humans have long traversed the lands along southwestern France and northern Spain. The Camino itself is officially a Christian pilgrimage that is over 1,200 years old, but the terrain is, of course, even older. By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policyĭisconnect from normal life (and technology) and enter into a deep experience of presence and connectedness on many levels-with nature, with others, and with yourself.

Camino de santiago de campostela