Camino del Norte
8 km, 20 m up and 5 m down, through 2 places, 1 of which has somewhere to sleep. Where you stop is up to you.
Every place on the path in order, with the distance from Santoña. 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.
From the ferry terminal, with your back to the water, walk straight into the city. You will pass through the Plaza San Antonio and then the large Manzanedo Park. Keep going straight when you get to the first roundabout (bus terminal here) and at the next one do the same; you are looking for the least busy northbound road. From this roundabout, it is a straight path to Berria. At the entrance to town is the high-walled El Dueso prison.
The official camino over the Alto de Brusco is straightforward. To follow the alternative along the road, turn left at the bend to follow a pedestrian path past the first roundabout. At the second roundabout bear right to follow the CA-141 in the direction of Somo. There exist several variants of the camino along this stretch, which may accidentally take you away from Noja and to San Miguel de Meruelo.
All of these options require you to turn left off of the CA-141 so if Noja is your destination, keep on the main road and ignore all left-hand turns. When you do leave the CA-141 it will be to the right and is marked Helgueras 2km.
If neither Helgueras, Noja, nor Castillo are on your agenda you can follow the left facing arrows and continue directly to San Miguel.
At the end of Berria, the camino splits. This is one of the rare points where the official camino might not be the best option. Where the main road turns left at the end of town, the camino turns right onto a trail which climbs 100m up to the top of the El Brusco headland. Although this climb affords excellent panoramic views from the top, its steep sandy terrain is not for the faint of heart.
The alternative is to follow the road to Noja.
When you get to the beach in Helgueras the camino resumes across the sands and up to Noja.
The camino enters Noja along the park adjacent to the beach, and turns left at the far end to follow the road uphill into the center of town. It passes around the Iglesia de San Pedro and then winds its way back down to the CA-141 which it crosses into Castillo.
Distances are the sum of the town-to-town measurements in my data, not a straight line on a map. Climb and descent come from the altitude of each place listed above, so they under-read where the path goes over a hill between two of them.
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.