Vía de la Plata
16.2 km, 189 m up and 113 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 Mombuey. 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.
As the camino gets deeper into the Zamora mountains, the villages get closer together but smaller. Few offer any services. The camino follows near the N-525 for a short distance before turning south to cross the motorway and the AVE line. After crossing, it passes through the small rural hamlets of Valdemerilla (4.6 km), Cernadilla (3.5 km), San Salvador de Palazuelo (1.8 km), and Entrepenas (3.4 km). It then turns back north to cross over the AVE, the motorway, and the N-525 into Asturianos.
A handful of stone houses along the path. No services. The depopulation of rural Zamora is visible here -- more empty buildings than occupied ones.
Another near-empty hamlet. No services. The Iglesia de la Asuncion has a simple stone facade that catches the light nicely if you're passing in the morning.
A tiny hamlet with no services. The name suggests a grander past than the present delivers. Press on to Entrepenas.
Between the rocks -- that's what the name means, and that's what it looks like. No services. The landscape here is increasingly rugged as you approach the Sanabria mountains.
When the camino leaves Asturianos it picks up the N-525 but leaves it soon after to follow a paved road that turns to the right. DO NOT miss this turn, or the one just after which removes you from the road entirely. It's a country path all the way to Palacios de Sanabria.
Distance, climb and descent are measured along the GPS track for this camino — 93 recorded points across this span, the same track the app carries. The town-to-town figures in my data put it at 16.3 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.