Distance: 19 km
Moving time: 4h05′
Difficulty: easy
This hike has been completed on 29th August 2019 according to the Caminosantiago.gal description.
Taking advantage of a conference in Santiago di Compostela, we decided to go few days before to hike the last four stages of the Camino del Norte. From Santiago airport, we took a bus to Vilalba, from which the first stage starts. Our flight was in the evening, therefore we slept in Vilalba, at the Albergue Castelos, with the idea of starting walking the day after.
Despite this leg of the camino wasn’t that long (only 19km), we started to walk quite early since the albergue kicked us out at 8.30 AM. The camino crosses the main street of Vilalba, going aside the highway. It was impossible to get lost anyway, with a mile stone signalling the way every few hundred meters.
The town soon gives place to the countryside. We passed across rivers, farms and small bridges, crossing the state road few times too. We were expecting the camino to be more on a trail surface, instead we found ourselves walking on asphalted road quite often, resulting in hurting feet at the end of the day. If you go for this path, I’d suggest to wear some light shoes in place of boots, being more comfortable and appropriate.
Passed few villages, meeting some nice old ladies that offered us fresh pears, we arrived in the town of Baamonde after four hours of walk. There we stayed at the public albergue, which I can definitely recommend. In Baamonde, we visited the old church and the house of the local artist Victor Corral Castro and, finally we went for dinner (after 8.30pm!) at the Restaurante Galicia, where we had amazing traditional Galician food.
Stay tuned for the next post about the second leg of the Camino del Norte, from Baamonde to Sobrado. Ciao!