Picked by our team
Towns worth discovering along the Camino de Santiago, chosen by our team. Open one to see its history and sights, and where to stay.
49 towns on the Camino Francés
View on the mapArzúa is the last small town before Santiago, 38.4 kilometers from the cathedral. Here the Camino del Norte meets the Francés, and in the albergue pilgrims from Irún, Oviedo and Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port sleep side by side. The town lives from Arzúa-Ulloa cheese and from pilgrims; there is little to see. One evening is enough.
Camino FrancésCamino Primitivo+1Astorga is a crossroads: after about 701 kilometres from Seville, the Vía de la Plata ends here and joins the Camino Francés. The Roman town on its hill has Gaudí's Bishop's Palace, a cathedral and a pilgrim tradition going back to 1121. An afternoon is enough, and tomorrow the mountains begin.
Camino FrancésVia de la PlataAtapuerca is a village of about 160 inhabitants with a World Heritage site on its doorstep: in the caves of the sierra, researchers found human remains more than 900,000 years old. You sleep 263.7 kilometres beyond Saint-Jean among the ancestors of Europe, can visit the excavation sites on a guided tour, and tomorrow morning you cross the sierra towards Burgos.
Camino FrancésBelorado is the first small Castilian town beyond La Rioja, 233.7 kilometres from Saint-Jean: a market town with a fuero from 1116, hermits' caves in the rock beneath the castle, and bronze plaques with handprints as a sign of welcome. The parish albergue beside Santa María takes you in on a donation basis. An afternoon is enough.
Camino FrancésBercianos del Real Camino is a quiet village 10.3 kilometres beyond Sahagún, and for many pilgrims a fixed point because of a single house: the parish hostel in a 17th-century rectory, where volunteers cook a shared dinner for a donation. An evening is enough, and that evening is the reason to come.
Camino FrancésBurgos was once the capital of Castile, and for pilgrims it is the threshold to the Meseta. Its Gothic cathedral, begun in 1221, is a World Heritage Site and the tomb of El Cid; with a credencial you pay €6 instead of €11. A rest day is worth it before you head out into the vastness of the high plateau.
Camino FrancésRuta de la LanaCacabelos is the wine town of the Bierzo: a long main street of houses with coats of arms, a bridge over the Cúa and a sanctuary against whose walls pilgrims used to sleep. Here, 197.5 kilometres before Santiago, the Camino Olvidado also ends. An afternoon is enough, with a glass of Mencía.
Camino FrancésCamino OlvidadoCalzadilla de la Cueza lies at the end of one of the longest stretches without a village on the Camino Francés: 17.2 kilometres on a Roman road beyond Carrión de los Condes, then an adobe village of just under 50 people. There is no more than a bed, food and a church with a Renaissance altarpiece. An evening is enough.
Camino FrancésCarrión de los Condes is the town of the sisters: Poor Clares, Vincentian Sisters and the community of Santa María run the pilgrim albergues here, and in the evening they sing with you. Add two Romanesque portals, a 16th-century cloister and the counts from the Cid epic. An afternoon is enough; tomorrow brings 17 kilometers without a village.
Camino FrancésTop rated
The stays pilgrims rate highest right now, across every Camino.
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