We will be based in Valencia for two months and one of the adventures on our list is to experience 3-4 days of the Camino.
Can you share a few suggestions for easy/moderate walking, scenic, and that would most likely have overnight places to stay?
I remember reading a great way to do this when I spent an afternoon in Rick’s library … but I didn’t capture it!
There are over 18 different Caminos de Santiago..which one is the one you plan to walk on and starting from where?
A friend told us about Camino Portugues from Tui but that sounds like a 4-5 day trip. Exploring different options.
We are willing to travel to get to a good starting point, knowing we don’t want to do the hard stretch beginning in Valencia.
Thanks!
As MikeBasqueGuide indicates, there are many caminos. The one covered on Rick Steve show ( and also walked for 1/2 day on his Basque Tour) is the Camino Frances or the French Way.
People say a camino starts wherever you start— could be walking out your front door. But the classic definition of the French Way starts in Saint Jean Pied de Port (if you want to start in France) or Roncevalles (if want to start in Spain).
The first week of this would be Saint-Jean to say Longrono. It’s a lovely walk. It’s not the easiest though -- the first day is among the most challenging on the whole walk.
The last week is Sarria to Santiago de Compostela. That’s around 100 kilometers and it is also the busiest section. Nice section!
Any part of the trail has lots of places to stay overnight. If you looking for just a couple days or so, well, options are myriad— and fantastic.
MikeBasqueGuide or a Ms Jo (a frequent poster here) probably have great ideas. I’ll offer this one— Pamplona to Estella or Logroño .
Happy travels.
There are a few websites dedicated to the various Caminos..maybe it's worth taking a look at a few of those.
https://caminoways.com
The Camino de Levante begins in Valencia. Maybe you could walk from there to Xativa, or beyond. But much of this is walking on pavement.
https://globalpilgrim.net/camino-levante-days-1-3-valencia-to/
Valenciano Pilgrims site:
https://vieiragrino.com/en/
The last link in ekscrunchy’s post has a map displaying the towns from Valencia to Santiago, as well as elevations. Seems it should be easy to pick places along that route that would work. You may want to avoid the long steep uphill section in favor of a more favorable uphill or downhill grade.
I definitely wouldn’t travel all the way across the country to walk for a couple days from Tui.
Let me comment about another "Camino", much less popular than the "Camino de Santiago", the "Ignatian Way" or "Camino Ignaciano". Not much good info on the web, it seems that www.caminoignaciano.org has been hijacked and it´s not working properly. This other website offers a good description of it, https://viajecaminodesantiago.com/en/news/camino-ignaciano/
Quite unknown by US and other foreign visitors, but Ignacio de Loyola (aka Iñigo de Loyola, its original name) was born in the Basque Country and founded the Jesuit order, the biggest in the Catholic world (those "Loyola" universities in the US are named after the town where Iñigo-Ignacio de Loyola was born). Of course, much less busy than the Camino de Santiago, quite overcrowded at certain times of the year and in the most popular places (not to mention Santiago de Compostela, now a big touristy destination).
By the way, the Basilica of Loiola (as it´s spelled in Basque) is magnificent, located in a beautiful valley surrounded by green mountains, next to the castle where iñigo-Ignacio was born. https://loyola.global/en/basilica#the-dome
In any case, the walk from Pamplona into Estella and Santo Domingo de la Calzada and onwards, crossing Navarre and La Rioja, makes sense as it´s the one closer to Valencia, I believe.
This gives us so much to dig into, so appreciative! We were overwhelmed with everything on the web so all your tips/ideas are helpful.
I may be back after studying this,
Thank you!
You kind of need to decide if you just want to spend a few days walking one of the many Camino routes, do you want to end in Santiago, do you want a Compostela. If it is that last one, you will need to walk at least 100km with the last 20km walking into Santiago.
If you just want to spend some time on a route with the Camino vibe, pick any of the routes easy to get to from Valencia.
Then you need to decide how far you want to walk each day. All of the routes have plenty of places to stay. Pick from albergues, private or municipal, pension or small hotels. Luggage transfer is easy to manage each day on all of the routes.
This website is a treasure trove of everything Camino, though most of the posters are those who don't use tour companies. On FB, there are 100s of Camino groups. American Pilgrims might be good to join if you are in the US.
https://www.caminodesantiago.me/community/
There are hiking trails all over Spain not known as any particular Camino routes, many which are interspersed with nice towns and villages and places to stay. Somewhat close to Valencia is the Marina Alta, I would suggest you google search for "Marina Alta Hiking Trip".
