Camino Francés
12.5 km, 120 m up and 85 m down, through 4 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 Puente de Villarente. 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.
The bridge here once posed a serious threat to pilgrims when the river ran high, and as a result the town became home to several pilgrim hospices. The current bridge is long and multi-arched, spanning a broad riverbed th…
As you leave Puente de Villarente, watch for arrows pointing you along a trail to the right, up a small hill toward Arcahueja. It's fairly well-marked but follows a service road that's often lined with parked trucks and can be disorienting.
Continue straight past the playground and climb toward the Alto del Portillo.
Valdelafuente sits a few hundred meters off the camino. No reason to detour unless you're staying at accommodation here.
The Alto del Portillo provides your first view of León. The tradition at this point is to search the skyline for the spires of the cathedral — they're visible on a clear day, rising above the city like a beacon. The mome…
Puente de Castro has grown large enough to merge with León's outer barrio of Santa Ana. The bridge gives the neighborhood its name, and the approach through the suburbs has plenty of bars for a rest before the final few …
The camino exits past the cathedral, passing the Iglesia de San Isidoro and then the Parador (the former Hostal de San Marcos) on the river. From there it crosses the Río Bernesga and heads through the western suburbs. The route is well-marked but the urban exit can feel long. The Virgen del Camino, a major pilgrimage site, is about 5 km from the center.
Distance, climb and descent are measured along the GPS track for this camino — 152 recorded points across this span, the same track the app carries. The town-to-town figures in my data put it at 12.3 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.