Stage Gondán to Mondoñedo

The stage between Gondán and Mondoñedo covers 15.6 kilometres and is by far the most manageable of this section of the Camino del Norte. After the previous day's battering, the pilgrim finds here a short day with a gentle profile —barely a couple of brief climbs— and two stops of great cultural weight. It is a stage to walk slowly and to reach with time to spare.

From Gondán the Camino drops calmly towards the valley floor, crossing San Xusto de Cabarcos between oak woods, hay meadows and farmland. The descent is gradual and welcome, along sunken lanes and dirt tracks, and it gradually opens up the valley of the river Masma.

Halfway through the day comes Vilanova de Lourenzá, and it deserves a proper stop. The town is dominated by the Monasterio de San Salvador, founded in the 10th century by the holy count Osorio Gutiérrez, whose monumental Baroque façade was designed by Fernando de Casas Novoa, the same architect who years later would sign the Obradoiro in Compostela. Its museum of sacred art preserves the Early Christian marble sarcophagus that the count brought from Aquitaine. Lourenzá is also the capital of the faba, the bean with Protected Geographical Indication to which it devotes an annual festival, and a good place to eat.

After Lourenzá the Camino climbs gently through Ogrobe and A Calvela, with a short ascent that barely troubles, and then descends towards Mondoñedo. The arrival in the city is one of the finest on the Norte: capital of the district of A Mariña Central and an episcopal see for centuries, Mondoñedo preserves an old town declared a Historic-Artistic Site, of arcades and heraldic houses, presided over by the cathedral —known as the kneeling cathedral because its ground plan is low and broad—, with its rose window, its Baroque organ and its medieval frescoes. It is the city of Álvaro Cunqueiro, and it has a dessert of its own: the tarta de Mondoñedo, of puff pastry, almond and angel-hair squash jam.