Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela

[potato]

Flying to santander, 1st to 9th august, plan is walk what we can and bus/train in between.
Hoping to do northern route. Can anyone advise as to sections that shouldn't be missed and sections to bus so that we can get to Santiago for 8th august.
cheers
Patrick

[sillydoll]

Hi there,
The camino Norte is about 550 km long from Santander to Santiago. If you only have 6 days to walk - and you have to get to Santiago - it might be better to start closer to Santiago otherwise you will spending most of your precious time on transport.
Are you hoping to earn a Compostela? If so, you will have to walk the last 100kms to Santiago - which on the Norte would be from about Lugo. (There is an Alsa bus from Santander at 03:30 that arrives in Lugo at 10:50.)
If you don't have to get to Santiago then perhaps some of the members on this forum could recommend some of the more scenic sections of the route.
Have a look at this website for more info:
http://www.gawthorpe40.freeserve.co.uk

Norte_map.jpg (32.65 KB) Viewed 272 times

[peregrina2000]

Hi, Patrick,
I agree with Sil that with only six days for walking, your best bet is to walk a continuous stretch for those days, otherwise you will waste your days on buses.

For me, there are several beautiful 6 day stretches:
Irun to Bilbao
Comillas to Villaviciosa
Aviles to Ribadesella
Mondonedo to Arzua

Lugo is actually on the Camino Primitivo, and I haven't walked that route, but I hear it's beautiful. And it would give you the 100 km necessary for the compostela, as Sil notes. It's a bit harder to identify an accessible starting point on the Norte that's the equivalent of Sarria (that is, 100 km out). The closest seems to be about Baamonde, but that's not exactly a hub.

A totally different possibility would be either the Camino Ingles from Ferrol or the Portugues from Tui (or a little further back in Portugal) , both of which could be done in that short amount of time.

You've got lots of choices, so have fun planning. Laurie