Camino del Norte
16.9 km, 260 m up and 292 m down, through 6 places, 2 of which have somewhere to sleep. Where you stop is up to you.
Every place on the path in order, with the distance from Escamplero. Most are too small to sleep in — a fountain, a chapel, a bar that may or may not be open — but they are what the day is actually made of.
Exit town via the road (turn left from the albergue). Before Valsera, the camino will leave the road for 400m.
The camino rejoins the road in the small hamlet of Valsera, be on the lookout for a marker on your left where you will once again leave the road and follow a track through the countryside. You will once again meet a road shortly before arriving in Premoño.
At the end of town, the camino turns to the right near a large horreo (the square plan structure on stilts) and onto a country track. Cyclists should leave town by staying on the road, down the hill, and to the right at the first junction (PALADIN 1km). It is the same distance and well marked but avoids some unfriendly (for bikes) terrain. Both options descend to the río Nalón.
Between Paladin and Peñaflor you will be walking with the río Nalón and the train tracks on your left-hand side. You will pass through the roadside villages of Puerma and Laracha. Peñaflor is on the opposite side of the river when you get to the first bridge. Once you have passed the church on the opposite side of the river, the camino immediately leaves the road to the right to follow signs in the direction of the FEVE railway station.
The camino leaves the main roads and crosses underneath the railway in Peñaflor, and will cross back over them at the outskirts of Grado.
Leave Grado along the main road (N-634). You will pass the 18th century Fuente de Arriba, from which the people of Grado drew their water before the installation of running water, on your right. Shortly beyond a cruceiro (stone cross) on your left the camino turns left and begins climbing, first on a concrete road and then on a gravel path.
The camino emerges onto the road, turns right, and passes over a newly constructed roadway. It then passes through the hamlets of Cascayal and El Valle (a place with no buildings whatsoever, but which does have a dumpster). At the next road junction is the turn to San Juan de Villapañada.
Beware guidebooks which erroneously place the Villapañada albergue in Grado, when it is in fact 3.5 km outside of town.
San Juan de Villapañada and the albergue are about 700m up the road and off the camino. If you spend the night there, retrace your steps to rejoin the camino.
On the way up to El Friesnu you will pass through La Pelona.
Retrace your steps to get back to the camino as it ascends to El Friesnu.
Distance, climb and descent are measured along the GPS track for this camino — 459 recorded points across this span, the same track the app carries. The town-to-town figures in my data put it at 17.2 km.
Esta entidad ha sido beneficiaria de una ayuda del Programa de incentivos a la movilidad eficiente y sostenible (MOVES III), gestionado por la Xunta de Galicia a través del Instituto Enerxético de Galicia (INEGA) en el marco del Real Decreto 266/2021, y cofinanciada por la Unión Europea — NextGenerationEU, dentro del Plan de Recuperación, Transformación y Resiliencia.