Camino del Norte
16 km, 325 m up and 274 m down, through 12 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 Samarciellu. 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.
At the far end of Samarciellu, where the road meets a roundabout, the camino turns left onto a trail to Reaz, and beyond it Doriga.
Shortly beyond Doriga, the camino passes under the highway and on the other side it meets up with the alternate route that went through Cabruñana. Be mindful not to walk the wrong way back up to Cabruñana. The camino turns left sharply onto a narrow trail and descends to the quarry/village of Las Casas del Puente.
There is a large traffic interchange at the end of Las Casas, in the hamlet of La Rodriga. The camino keeps to the left and towards the river. In the summer months there may be a bar open in the park alongside the river.
After crossing the bridge into Cornellana there is a sign indicating a trail to your left. This option takes you directly to the albergue without first passing through town. It is the same distance.
La Rodriga is the small cluster of buildings at the roundabout before Cornellana. In summer months there may be a bar open in the park alongside the river.
The camino leaves town from the road behind the monastery. Arrows are weakly painted here. Simply follow the road to the left of the monastery, and turn right at the first junction to follow the property line behind the monastery and uphill.
600m after Sobrerriba, at a point where the houses crowd the road, the camino turns right onto a mountain track. The track uphill curves to the left and around the mount before descending near a sand pit and the town of Llamas.
Beyond the town you will pass under a roadway. Shortly beyond that you will leave the road and continue by trail, passing over the Puente de Casazorrina.
Just past the fuente the camino leaves the road for a riverside trail on your left.
Between Casazorrina and Mallecín the camino follows a trail, which crosses under the autopista (highway).
To exit town, carry on under the archway and up the road. There is a fair amount of climbing ahead of you. The climb meets the road at El Llanón, which is easy to miss as its infrastructure counts for little more than an abandoned factory along the road.
Distance, climb and descent are measured along the GPS track for this camino — 433 recorded points across this span, the same track the app carries. The town-to-town figures in my data put it at 15.4 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.