Reliegos

How long to stay?

An evening is enough. For many, Reliegos is the break before the last stretch to Mansilla de las Mulas; for others it is where they sleep to split the long stage from Sahagún. You can see the meteorite plaque and the ruin of the old church in half an hour. If you sleep here, you will be in León tomorrow after 24.6 kilometres.

Reliegos in Ninja numbers

• 12.9 kilometres lie between El Burgo Ranero and Reliegos, with no village in between.
• Almost 8 kilos was the weight of the meteorite that fell into the Calle Real at around 8 am on 28 December 1947.
• 35 centimetres deep was the furrow it left.
• 5.9 kilometres are left to Mansilla de las Mulas, 24.6 to León.
• 338.8 kilometres are still left from here to Santiago on the Camino Francés.

Arriving: after the long straight

From El Burgo Ranero you walk almost 13 kilometres through open country with hardly any shade; pilgrims report fenced-off streams and running out of water there. Reliegos is the first place after that. You enter the village along the Calle Real, the same street the stone fell onto from the sky in 1947.

In brief: three roads and a stone

Reliegos lies where three Roman roads met, in the south-east of the province of León, between the valley of the Esla and the Tierra de Campos. Its history begins around the middle of the 10th century; since the 12th century the Camino Francés has passed through the village, and there was a small pilgrim hospital. Then, on Holy Innocents' Day 1947, the meteorite fell. The bang was so loud that neighbouring villages thought a plane had crashed; the mayor guarded the still hot stone until the air force collected it. Today Reliegos belongs to the municipality of Santas Martas.

A stone from the sky: what to see

Everything is close together.

• The impact site in the Calle Real: Since 17 September 2016 a plaque has commemorated the meteorite. The stone itself is an ordinary chondrite, more than 4.5 billion years old, and most of it is now in the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid.
• Ruin of the old church: On a hill stand the remains of the apse of the former fortified church of San Antonio Abad; its tower collapsed at the end of the year 2000.
• Iglesia de San Cornelio y San Cipriano: Today's church has a Madonna and Child from the late 12th or early 13th century. We have not found opening hours.

Honestly

• The stage to here is hot. Almost 13 kilometres without a village and with little shade; take enough water in El Burgo Ranero.
• There is nothing more than the meteorite and the church. Reliegos is a village to rest in, not a place for a rest day.
• Most hostels close in winter. According to our data, many private places only open from spring to October.

Where pilgrims sleep

The public hostel is called Albergue Municipal Don Gaiferos and has 48 beds. There are also smaller private hostels such as Albergue Gil and Las Hadas, from about €13 to €18 in the dorm (as of October 2026). We have not found a donation-based hostel in the village.

Ninja tips

• Look for the plaque in the Calle Real. It hangs where the meteorite struck in 1947; nothing was ever built on the impact site again.
• Split the stage from Sahagún here. Otherwise it would be 36.5 kilometres to Mansilla de las Mulas, from Reliegos only 5.9.
• Fill your bottles before moving on. The day to León is long, at 24.6 kilometres.

Onward: via Mansilla to León

Beyond Reliegos it is 5.9 kilometres to Mansilla de las Mulas with its town walls. After that the path leads via Puente Villarente and Arcahueja to León, 24.6 kilometres from Reliegos.

What awaits you tomorrow

León, the big city after days on the Meseta, with its Gothic cathedral and stained-glass windows. If you sleep here in Reliegos, you will be there by the afternoon.

Deep dive: The morning a star fell

A short read, in case you want to learn more about Reliegos. About two minutes' reading.

A bang over the plain

It was the morning of the twenty-eighth of December 1947, Holy Innocents' Day, when people in Spain play tricks on each other. At around eight o'clock there was such a loud crash over Reliegos that the neighbouring villages thought a plane had come down. In the Calle Real, a few metres from a house, a stone of almost eight kilos lay in a fresh furrow.

The mayor keeps watch

The mayor stood beside the still glowing stone and guarded it until the air force came to collect it. Scientists identified a chondrite, a piece of primordial matter that has not melted for more than four and a half billion years. Most of it is now in the natural history museum in Madrid, and a fragment made its way to the United States. Nothing was ever built again on the spot where it struck. In September 2016 the village put up a plaque there.

What Reliegos gives you

Pilgrims have passed through here since the twelfth century. Most of them never experienced anything special, only heat, dust and the road. And then one morning a star fell onto the street. Perhaps on the long, empty stretches of the Meseta it is worth looking up now and then.