Stage Baamonde to Sobrado dos Monxes

The 39.8 kilometres separating Baamonde from Sobrado dos Monxes along the classic Miraz itinerary make up the longest day of the Camino del Norte on its way through Galicia: more than ten hours by the clock, and a difficulty that has less to do with the climbing —599 metres of ascent spread out very gently— than with the distance and the solitude of the route. At some unremarkable point along the way, almost without realising it, you tread the highest point of the entire Camino del Norte: 710 metres.

You leave Baamonde, in the municipality of Begonte, behind the church of Santiago and the centuries-old hollowed chestnut tree in whose trunk the sculptor Víctor Corral carved a chapel. The Camino then heads into solitary rural country that survives thanks to family livestock farming, alternating dirt tracks, sunken lanes and stretches of local road, among meadows, stands of eucalyptus and hamlets of a few houses. The succession of settlements —Carballedo, in the parish of Santa Leocadia, Seixón and A Lagoa— sets the rhythm of a quiet, uneventful morning.

Miraz, a little past halfway, is the natural division of the stage. Its hostel, run for years by the British confraternity of pilgrims, is a classic of the route, and today several of the intermediate settlements have accommodation, so splitting the day in two is no longer an exception but what most people do. Anyone continuing in one go will face a second half of endless undulations through A Roxica, A Cabana and O Mesón, with very few services and less shade than one would wish for in summer.

The prize is the arrival at Sobrado dos Monxes and its monastery of Santa María, one of the great Cistercian complexes in Galicia. Founded in the 10th century and reformed by the Cistercians in the 12th, it preserves an imposing Baroque façade, a monumental cloister and the medieval kitchen; it is still inhabited by a community of monks who keep a hostel for pilgrims and offer the chance to attend their offices. After forty kilometres, few arrivals are so welcome.