Walking Camino de Santiago del norte

Walking Camino de Santiago del norte

• Monday, 14 August 2017

The Camino de Santiago del norte, The Northern Way, is a well trodden pilgrimage route, along northern Spain and as it turns out, 2017 is a holy year for it. Originally, pilgrims walked this route to reach a monastery but these days, people who enjoy walking take this route to see northern Spain and stop off to see and do things along the way. It's a bit of an adventure really.

I did a little section earlier this year, and spent four days exploring the route starting in Santandar and finishing at the monastery. Santander is a seaside town and reminded me a little of Brighton. We ate outside in the sunshine before taking a stroll the front with an ice cream and finishing up with a glass of cava at a beachside bar; My kind of afternoon!

Over the next four days, from Santander, we walked a little along the coast through the Oyambre national park. With beautiful green landscapes and a lovely stretch of very quite beach, I really enjoyed walking this part before we headed inland. There we visited a cave, El Soplao, although that's not really my style so I spent that hour outside in the sunshine. We also got a cable car to the top and explored picos de europa mountain range.

 

Of course there was also lots of food along the way. Cantabria is full of local culinary delights and as usual, I wanted to try them all. We ate Cocido montañés which was the perfect hearty lunch after a morning exploring in the cold!

My favourite stop of the trip had to be Potes; the cute little cobbled town that we reached just before our final stop. The old town was a lovely place to spend the morning wandering around I just love a town with a river running right through it. A very pretty place!

Our trip finished at the monastery. We walked through the door of forgiveness, as pilgrims had come to do in the past, and once inside was able to see the Lígnum Crucis. This metal cross houses the largest surviving piece of the cross that Jesus was crucified on.

 After chatting with the priest, we took a group selfie to celebrate the end of our trip!

*Thanks to The Spanish Tourism Board for hosting me.