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Stage of the Camino

Ávila to El Oso

From Ávila To El Oso

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Origin

Ávila

Destination

El Oso

Distance

27.20 km

Duration

6.80 h

Difficulty

Moderate

Stage of the Camino

Stage Description

The first day across La Moraña, the cereal district of northern Ávila. The stage leaves the walled city and descends gently, without a single ramp worth mentioning, from the 1,132 metres of Ávila to the roughly 890 of El Oso: twenty-seven kilometres of continuous, almost imperceptible descent. The landscape changes completely from the day before: granite and pine disappear and the plain of wheat and barley takes the stage, cut by plantation pine woods and dotted with steppe lagoons. The destination, El Oso, is famous precisely for its wetland, a lagoon complex with birdwatching hides that is one of the best observation points in the province.
With the wall behind him, the pilgrim on the Camino del Sureste begins the crossing of La Moraña, the great cereal plain occupying the north of the province of Ávila. It is twenty-seven kilometres of gentle descending profile, with no technical difficulty at all, in which a little over two hundred metres of altitude are lost so gradually as to be barely noticed.

The departure from Ávila is to the north, leaving behind the walled enclosure and the valley of the Adaja. The first kilometres still keep something of the sierra character — stone walls, pastures, the odd granite outcrop — but the relief soon yields to a flat horizon that will not break again all day. It is worth warning that this is a stage of scarce shade and frequent wind, in which the weather matters more than the gradient.

The path advances along farm tracks among plots of wheat, barley and sunflower, alternating dry and irrigated farming, with plantation pine woods appearing and disappearing on either side. The villages of La Moraña are small, of brick and adobe, with bell-gable churches and Mudéjar towers visible from far off above the crops; here the bell tower is the only geographical feature.

The stage ends in El Oso, at the heart of the wetland that bears its name. The lagoons of El Oso are a complex of shallow steppe pools, protected and fitted with hides, which gather greylag geese, black-winged stilts, lapwings, marsh harriers and a long list of waders during migration. For anyone arriving with time and light, a visit to the hide at dusk is the best possible reward for a long and monotonous day. The village is tiny and offers rural accommodation and little else, so it is wise to arrive with dinner sorted or booked.

Last updated: 17/08/2026

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