Stage Lalín to Santiago de Compostela (By bike)

The final stage of the Camino Sanabrés by bike covers 55.9 kilometres of almost permanent descent, from the 514 metres of Lalín to the 260 of Santiago de Compostela. After the hardship of the previous day, this is a grateful stage in which the terrain works in the cyclist's favour and the landscape softens as inland Galicia opens towards the lands of Compostela.

Leaving Lalín, the route crosses the Deza valley and takes on a fast stretch between meadows, oak groves and stone hamlets that follow one another almost without interruption. Silleda, little more than ten kilometres away, is the first town of any size on the route and offers a good coffee stop. Shortly afterwards comes A Bandeira, the rural heart of the region, with its market-town atmosphere and its row of houses lined up along the road.

The middle section runs through a string of parishes in Deza and A Estrada before looking out over the Ulla valley. The descent to Ponte Ulla offers one of the most beautiful sights of the Sanabrés: the river marks the border between Pontevedra and A Coruña, and above it rises the emphatic silhouette of Pico Sacro, the mountain steeped in Jacobean legend through which, according to tradition, the body of the Apostle passed on its way to burial.

From the valley floor begins the last climb of the whole Camino, a gentle sustained rise gaining height between eucalyptus trees and scattered hamlets, passing Lestedo and A Susana, until it reaches the southeastern outskirts of Santiago. The final urban stretch leads the cyclist to the Plaza del Obradoiro, before the baroque façade of the Cathedral. There ends a journey of more than four hundred kilometres from Zamora, having crossed the meseta, the mountains of Sanabria and the whole of Galicia from east to west.