Picked by our team
Towns along the Camino worth stopping in. Open a town to see what it offers and where to stay.
58 towns
In Freiburg two Camino routes cross beneath one of the most famous church towers in Europe: 116 metres high, completed around 1330, and still standing after the bombing night of 1944. Inside the Münster, St James has been crowning pilgrims since the thirteenth century. The city is worth a rest day, but there is no pilgrim hostel here.
Klausen grew out of almost nothing: around 1440 a day labourer called Eberhard placed a Pietà barely 20 centimetres tall in a wayside shrine, and today more than 100,000 pilgrims come every year. Here the Eifel-Camino meets the Mosel-Camino, and the Eberhardsklause is one of only two pilgrim hostels on the way to Trier.
Konstanz is a handover: four Camino routes from Germany arrive at the Münster, and the Via Jacobi sets off from here through Switzerland to Geneva. From 1414 to 1418 the Council met in the Münster and sentenced Jan Hus to death. Right next to it, around 940, a bishop had Jerusalem rebuilt.
León 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.
Logroño 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.
Loulé is your first evening stop on the Camino de Faro, 23.4 kilometers past the cathedral. The town carries a lot: a church that belonged to the Order of Santiago from 1298, a bell tower on a minaret, and a Madonna that eight men carry at a run up the hill every year. An afternoon is enough; there is no pilgrim hostel.
For many pilgrims Märstetten is the first evening on the Via Jacobi: 14 kilometres past Konstanz stands a church of St James from 1155 on the old pilgrim route to Einsiedeln. Volunteers have run a ten-bed pilgrim hostel here since 2003 for CHF 25. Bring a sleeping bag and sort out your own breakfast.
Matosinhos is where your Camino reaches the sea: eleven kilometres after Porto, a port town with fish restaurants and an image of Christ that, legend says, washed ashore here. There is no pilgrim albergue, but there are hostels. From here you follow the Senda Litoral north along wooden boardwalks.
Mérida is the foundation of the Vía de la Plata: the Romans counted the miles of their road to Astorga from here, and you enter the city over a bridge with 60 arches. The Camino Mozárabe ends here, and Santiago's archbishop's title came from here. Santiago is still around 760 kilometres away. Worth a rest day.
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