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Stage of the Camino

Herradón de Pinares to Ávila

From Herradón de Pinares To Ávila

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Destination

Ávila

Distance

21.50 km

Duration

5.38 h

Difficulty

Moderate

Stage of the Camino

Stage Description

A sierra crossing of just over twenty-one kilometres linking the pine woods of the Herradón valley with the walled city of Ávila. The profile is rolling and stays permanently above eleven hundred metres, among granite outcrops, hay meadows fenced with dry-stone walls and stands of maritime pine. Tornadizos de Ávila marks the halfway point and the passage into the Ávila peneplain. From there the horizon opens and, in clear weather, the Sierra de Gredos appears to the south while the wall begins to take shape ahead. The entrance to Ávila, with its eighty-eight granite towers enclosing the historic centre, is one of the high points of the entire Camino del Sureste.
The stage leading to Ávila covers just over twenty-one kilometres of mid-sierra terrain, with short climbs and descents that never amount to a pass but add up to appreciable wear. The whole route moves between 1,120 and 1,290 metres, in one of the highest and coolest sections of the itinerary: even in late spring it is wise to set off wrapped up.

Herradón de Pinares is soon left behind and the path enters a landscape very characteristic of this side of the sierra: granite boulders and slabs emerging from the pasture, hay meadows bounded by dry-stone walls, low oak woods and patches of maritime pine. This is grazing country, and it is not unusual to meet black Avileña cattle of the Iberian breed grazing beside the path.

Tornadizos de Ávila appears around the middle of the day and is the only settlement with services along the route, a good place for a long rest. From there the path definitively abandons the enclosed relief of the sierra and emerges onto the Ávila peneplain: the ground flattens, the pine woods withdraw and the horizon widens. On clear days the crest line of Gredos is drawn to the south, and ahead, little by little, the profile of the city begins to stand out.

The final approach to Ávila is made from the east. The wall, raised from the eleventh century with eighty-eight towers and nine gates, is the best-preserved medieval enclosure in Europe and justifies the stop on its own. Inside await the cathedral of El Salvador, whose apse is built into the wall itself as a defensive tower, the Romanesque basilica of San Vicente, the convent of Santa Teresa raised over the saint's birthplace, and the convents and palaces that fill the old town. Ávila, a World Heritage Site since 1985, also offers the pilgrim every service before descending to the flat lands of La Moraña.

Last updated: 17/08/2026

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