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 mapLeón is the city of light on the Camino Francés: in the Gothic cathedral the day pours through 737 stained-glass windows, and in San Isidoro kings lie beneath Romanesque frescoes. After the Meseta, a rest day here is time well spent. At San Marcos the Camino San Salvador sets off, about 121 kilometres to Oviedo.
Camino FrancésCamino San SalvadorLogroño welcomes you across the Ebro: since 1884 the stone bridge has replaced an older one that, according to tradition, San Juan de Ortega built for pilgrims. The capital of La Rioja has two donation-based pilgrim albergues and more than 65 bars around Calle Laurel. An afternoon is enough, and the evening belongs to the pinchos.
Camino FrancésCamino del EbroLos Arcos is a stage town in southern Navarre, 133.3 kilometers past Saint-Jean, and for three centuries it was a piece of Castile in the middle of Navarre. Behind a plain main street stands a church far too big for the town, with a plateresque façade, a Gothic cloister and an organ from 1760. An afternoon is enough.
Camino FrancésMansilla de las Mulas is the last stop before León: a town behind 12th-century walls, at whose gate three stone pilgrims sit exhausted. The Camino Vadiniense ends here, and from here it is 18.7 kilometers to León. One evening is enough; the municipal albergue is a stopgap.
Camino FrancésCamino Vadiniense and LebaniegoTwo Caminos merge in Melide: here the Camino Primitivo from Oviedo meets the Camino Francés, and from here you walk the last 52.6 kilometers to Santiago together. Add a 14th-century wayside cross, a pilgrim hospital that is now a museum, and the octopus the town is famous for. One afternoon is enough.
Camino FrancésCamino PrimitivoMolinaseca is the village by the river after the long descent from the Monte Irago: over 1,000 metres of elevation down, then across the pilgrim bridge over the Meruelo into the Calle Real. In summer the river is an open-air pool, and the door of the sanctuary is clad in iron because pilgrims cut out splinters. An afternoon is enough.
Camino FrancésMonte do Gozo, the Mount of Joy, lies 4.8 kilometers before the cathedral: from here pilgrims have seen the towers of Santiago for the first time since the Middle Ages. Today trees often block the view, the papal monument has been dismantled, and the albergue is a village of pavilions. You don't have to stay, but you should pause.
Camino FrancésCamino Primitivo+1Nájera is a royal town between red cliffs on the Río Najerilla, 29.6 kilometers past Logroño. The monastery of Santa María la Real holds kings of Navarre, Castile and León, and behind the altar opens the cave where, according to legend, it all began. An afternoon is enough, just not on a Monday.
Camino FrancésNavarrete is the pottery village of La Rioja, 173.7 kilometres from Saint-Jean and 12.6 past Logroño. On the way out of town you walk through the Romanesque portal of a pilgrim hospital that is now the cemetery gate; up the hill stands a church with a Baroque high altar and a Flemish triptych. An afternoon between clay and wine.
Camino FrancésTop rated
The stays pilgrims rate highest right now, across every Camino.
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