Camino Francés
- UNESCO World Heritage
The most popular of the roads to Santiago crosses the Pyrenees at Roncesvalles and runs west across northern Spain through Pamplona, Burgos and León to the tomb of St James.
At a glance
- Starts in
- Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port
- Ends in
- Santiago de Compostela Cathedral
- Length
- 768 km
- On foot
- ≈ 31–38 days
- Best months
- April–May and September–October
About the trail
Pilgrims have walked this line since the Middle Ages, and the towns along it still carry the marks of that traffic: hospitals, bridges, monasteries and churches built for travellers. Many walkers start at Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, take the first day over the Pyrenees and then settle into the long plateau of the Meseta before the green hills of Galicia.
The Camino Francés is part of the UNESCO listing for the Route of Santiago de Compostela. From the Pyrenees it is about 930 km, usually split into some 32 stages, and spring or September and October are the best times to walk.
Trails it meets
Length measured on the OpenStreetMap line; no official figure checked yet.
No source gives the days on foot, so they are worked out from the length at 20–25 km a day.