Camino del Norte
21.5 km, 506 m up and 478 m down, through 5 places, 3 of which have somewhere to sleep. Where you stop is up to you.
Every place on the path in order, with the distance from Gernika. 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.
Keep going straight after crossing the bridge into Gernika, following the road to where it ends at a large mural recreating Picasso’s famous painting depicting the city under bombardment. Turn left there, uphill and against traffic, passing the Iglesia de Santa María de la Antigua. A few buildings later you will turn right to pass between the park and the Convento de Santa Clara. When this road ends at a larger one, turn left. Further on keep left at the fork in the road, heading downhill to a roundabout.
At this point, you are surrounded by residential buildings on all sides. Go straight through the roundabout to the next one, and turn right when you get to it. Keep straight along this road, and straight again through the park when the road ends in a bend. Past the ermita in the park it is a left turn and a right immediately after, past the last of Gernika’s urban expansion and into the countryside. From here you begin to wind your way steeply up to the Alto de Morga.
Beyond Gernika the camino is without any services for 15km, pack accordingly.
You will arrive at the Alto at a large and fairly dangerous highway crossing. The way ahead is marked, and you are heading towards the signs marked Larrabetzu. After crossing the highway, turn left at the first junction, uphill. You will pass the small Ermita de San Esteban and return to a woodland setting. The next place with a name is Eskerika, but you would not recognize it for much more than a single building.
Mind the traffic at the Alto, which comes faster than expected.
Follow the arrows through this place, eventually descending to Goikolexea and the Iglesia de San Hemeterius and Celedonius at the entrance to town.
After passing the church and bar at the start of town the camino comes to the main road where it turns left and follows the road all the way to nearby Larrabetzu.
The camino turns right at the entrance to Larrabetzu, leaving the main road behind. In town it turns right and begins to follow a different road directly to Lezama.
The camino keeps to the main road, passing straight through Lezama. It goes straight through two large roundabouts and turns left at the third to pass underneath the railway lines. After doing so it arrives at another roundabout, on the right-hand side is a trail that will take you under the AP-8. The route ahead climbs over the hillside, affording panoramic views of Bilbao. The way into Bilbao is well marked, and you enter the historic center via the Barrio Santa Cruz.
Zamudio sits along the road between Lezama and Bilbao and can be reached by continuing straight at the roundabout where the camino turns off toward the hillside. No particular reason to detour here unless you need the se…
Distance, climb and descent are measured along the GPS track for this camino — 383 recorded points across this span, the same track the app carries. The town-to-town figures in my data put it at 22.8 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.