Camino Francés
12.9 km, 814 m up and 182 m down, through 2 places. Where you stop is up to you.
Every place on the path in order, with the distance from Valcarlos. 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.
Leave town along the main road, eventually branching left onto a smaller road. Gañecoleta is less than 1 km from this junction. From there the serious climbing begins.
Gañecoleta is a tiny settlement on the Valcarlos Route where the serious climbing begins. A few scattered farmhouses, no services. From here the route climbs steeply — and relentlessly — toward the Puerto de Ibañeta, gai…
The Puerto de Ibañeta (1,057 m) is where the two routes from Saint Jean Pied de Port converge — the Napoleon Route descending from the Collado de Lepoeder through beech forest, and the Valcarlos Route climbing steeply fr…
The camino starts on a path to the west of the main road, heading into beech forest before returning to the road as you approach Burguete. It's a gentle, flat walk of about 3 km — a merciful start after the mountain.
Distance, climb and descent are measured along the GPS track for this camino — 212 recorded points across this span, the same track the app carries. The town-to-town figures in my data put it at 10.5 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.