Pilgrimage From Madrid to Santiago Through the Mountains

Linking the Camino de Madrid, San Salvador, and Primitivo

“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. 
The great affair is to move.”

Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes

Now that our long trek has come to a conclusion, we have begun to reflect on our long, woven and indirect pilgrimage from Madrid to Santiago de Compostela.  The Camino de Santiago is often described as a network of routes, but it can be difficult to imagine how those individual paths connect until a journey is built from several of them. 

This year we set out from Madrid on a continuous pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela that linked the Camino de Madrid, a short section of the Camino Francés, the Camino de San Salvador, and the Camino Primitivo. Near Melide, the Primitivo joined the Francés for the final walk into Santiago.

Madrid  →  Sahagún  →  León  →  Oviedo  →  Melide  →  Santiago de Compostela

Together, these routes created a journey of roughly 800 kilometres from Spain’s capital through the Sierra de Guadarrama, across the plains of Castile, over the Cantabrian Mountains, and through rural Asturias and Galicia. The transitions were as important as the landscapes. We repeatedly moved between quiet routes and busy ones, between cities and remote mountain valleys, and between the freedom of walking alone and the community - and challenges - created by larger numbers of pilgrims.

For experienced pilgrims looking beyond a single established Camino, this combination offers an unusually varied way to reach Santiago. It begins with the independence of the Camino de Madrid, uses the Francés as a bridge to León, turns north across the mountains on the San Salvador, and then follows the oldest recorded route of the Camino Primitivo west from Oviedo. It is not one Camino route with a few optional variants. It is a pilgrimage assembled from distinct routes, each with its own history, landscape, challenges, and feel.

Planning One Journey Across Several Caminos

Our plan grew from a desire to walk quieter and less crowded routes after earlier experiences on the Camino Francés and Camino Portugués (Central). We knew that the Camino de Madrid ended at Sahagún on the Francés, and that the Camino de San Salvador began farther west in León. From Oviedo, where the Camino de San Salvador ends, the Camino Primitivo continues toward Santiago. On a map, the connections seemed almost self-evident as a means to weave to the cathedral in Santiago. On foot, however, every junction marked a noticeable change in the character of the pilgrimage journey.

The route can be understood as a series of linked passages. The Camino de Madrid travels northwest from Madrid to Sahagún. From there, pilgrims follow the Camino Francés west for approximately 55 kilometres through Mansilla de las Mulas to León. At the Parador de San Marcos in León, the routes separate: the Francés continues west toward Santiago while the San Salvador turns north toward Oviedo. At Oviedo Cathedral, the Camino Primitivo begins its journey across Asturias and Galicia. Finally, near Melide, it joins the Francés for the remaining stages to Santiago.

This structure makes the pilgrimage flexible. Each route can be walked on its own, but together they create a longer journey with natural stopping points, iconic pilgrim spaces, and opportunities for rest. The cities of Segovia, León, Oviedo, and Lugo offer history and culture as well as practical places to recover. At the same time, combining the routes requires accepting that trail conditions, services, waymarking, pilgrim numbers, and the general atmosphere will change repeatedly.

Leaving Madrid and Finding the Way

Our pilgrimage began near the Church of Santiago in central Madrid. At first, walking away from the Royal Palace and through the busy capital city felt more like urban navigation than pilgrimage. We followed boulevards, passed the leaning towers of Plaza de Castilla, and continued through high-rise neighbourhoods, under bridges, across highways, and around a large hospital complex. The first yellow arrow felt like both a milestone and a reassurance that the Camino really did begin here. 

The city released after we traced our way through business districts and neighbourhoods. Eventually apartment blocks gave way to newer suburbs, then to fields, pathways, and the distant outline of the Sierra de Guadarrama. That transition became one of the defining pleasures of the Camino de Madrid. Instead of beginning at the edge of a village or at a well-established pilgrim gateway, we watched the modern capital recede behind us.

Beyond Madrid, the route felt increasingly independent and lightly travelled. We often walked alone, moving through rolling agricultural country where old drove roads, sandy tracks, and small villages carried us toward the mountains. White Storks nested on church towers, raptors circled over open fields, and birdsong repeatedly slowed our pace. Without a steady flow of other pilgrims around us, there was no pressure to match anyone else’s stages, pace or speed. The Camino was ours to observe as much as to complete.

Across the Sierra de Guadarrama

The Sierra de Guadarrama was evident long before we reached it. Snow-covered peaks rose beyond the fields, turning the early days into a gradual approach toward the mountains. The crossing over the Fuenfría Pass followed forest tracks and sections of old Roman road, taking us away from the metropolitan landscape and into a more elemental world of rock, trees, and changing weather.

This was the first major physical threshold of this year’s pilgrimage. The climb required effort, but in return the landscape provided the reward. The mountains were not an obstacle separating two stages; they were the route itself. Reaching the high pass and beginning the descent toward Segovia created the sense that we had truly walked out of one region of Spain and into another.\

Segovia provided a dramatic return to history and urban life. Its Roman aqueduct, cathedral, and Alcázar felt especially vivid after the forested mountain crossing. The city also established a pattern that would recur throughout the journey: remote walking followed by arrival in places dense with architecture, memory, and human activity.

The Plains of Castile and the Quiet Camino

Beyond Segovia, the landscape opened into the plains of Castilla y León. Red and pale tracks crossed green and brown fields beneath immense skies. Villages appeared at intervals, sometimes offering an albergue, café, or shop and – frustratingly - sometimes offering nothing at all. Closures became a recurring challenge. Listed accommodations could be unavailable, bars could be shuttered, and phone calls could go unanswered. The route was beautiful, but it asked us to remain flexible as well as being willing to walk on when necessary.

The quieter environment of the Camino de Madrid throughout this stretch also gave us more time to notice the life around us. Wild turkeys stood on distant ridges, swallows gathered mud for their nests, frogs called from roadside ditches, and a deer crashed through the vegetation beside a canal. These encounters rarely stopped the clock for anyone but us, yet they became part of the character of the pilgrimage, which did not involve a “race for the bunk”. On a trail with so few walkers, it felt natural to watch birds, watch frogs, and let the landscape shape our days.

The Camino de Madrid also passed through towns whose adobe walls, churches, and plazas seemed to be slowly returning to the earth. We encountered magnificent buildings alongside empty streets and closed services. This was not the polished pilgrim corridor we remembered from other Caminos. It offered a closer view of rural Spain, but it also made clear that walking a quieter, less developed and remote route can require more planning and self-reliance than walking a popular one.

Sahagún and the First Convergence

Reaching Sahagún brought the quiet independence of the Camino de Madrid to an abrupt end. After 322 kilometres, we joined the Camino Francés, returning to a route we had first walked in several years ago. Our arrival was complicated by one final closed albergue in Madrid and an unexpectedly long finish, so the readily available food, open accommodations, and familiar pilgrim services in Sahagún initially felt like enormous gifts.

At the same time, the atmosphere had changed. Shells, pilgrim-themed bars, English conversations, and a visible support network surrounded us. After days of searching for open services and often walking alone, we had entered a corridor structured around the Camino and largely dedicated to serving pilgrims. It felt less like we had reached another Spanish town than like we had stepped into a world created specifically for pilgrims. 

We followed the Francés west for two days and 55.3 kilometres, staying overnight in Mansilla de las Mulas before reachingLeón. These stages served a practical purpose by connecting Madrid and San Salvador, but they also allowed us to reconsider a route that had changed our lives six years earlier. The walking was easier, the infrastructure more dependable, and companionship much easier to find. We shared meals and stories with other pilgrims and appreciated the sense of community we had missed on the Camino de Madrid.  Yet we also saw the Francés differently. On the Camino de Madrid were more willing to make detours and less willing to let a guidebook determine the length of a stage. The short return to the Francés showed us that a familiar Camino can be understood differently by a person who returns to it.

Turning North in León

In León, the direction of our pilgrimage changed. Near the Parador de San Marcos, we reached a clearly marked split. One arrow pointed west along the Camino Francés toward Santiago. The other pointed north toward Oviedo on the Camino de San Salvador. It was here that we said goodbye to the Francés and turned away from the steady flow of pilgrims.

That decision was one of the most memorable moments of the entire journey. Most Camino routes draw walkers steadily west, but San Salvador initially seems to lead away from the destination. Its historical purpose is different: medieval pilgrims travelled from León to Oviedo to venerate the relics held in the Cathedral of San Salvador before continuing toward Santiago. The old saying warns that “whoever visits Santiago but not San Salvador honours the servant while neglecting the Lord.”

Almost immediately, the Camino became more isolated and more intimate the further north we trekked. A riverside path and bicycle trail led us away from León, after which red dirt tracks climbed into scrub-covered hills and forested valleys. A friendly bartender gave us stamps, pins, and purple San Salvador sashes. We began meeting the handful of pilgrims who would become familiar faces over the following days. After the near solitude of the Madrid and the larger community of the Francés, the San Salvador offered something between the two: a small pilgrim family forming in a demanding landscape.

Crossing the Cantabrian Mountains

The San Salvador is short enough to be completed in a handful of stages – we did so in five or six days, but distance alone does not convey its intensity. The route follows rushing rivers, climbs through forest, crosses open ridges, and threads between small mountain communities where services are limited. Elevation, rough ground, and quickly changing weather make the days feel longer than the kilometres suggest.

The mountains gave the route its beauty. As we navigated the hills, we walked through mist and rain, climbed rocky tracks, crossed exposed passes, and watched villages appear below us in deep green valleys. Griffon vultures and kites circled overhead, dippers accompanied us near the rivers, and birdsong filled the wooded sections. There were, of course, moments of discomfort - wet clothing, mud, sunburn, and the repeated effort of another ascent - but the rewards more than matched the effort required.

The shared challenges of the Camino de San Salvador created a sense of solidarity without producing the social pressure of a crowded Camino. Because so few pilgrims were walking, the people we did meet mattered.  With each day’s stage completed, our afternoons often passed by and were shared over cervezas sitting on a patio overlooking panoramic vistas.

The final stage into Oviedo was longer and harder than we had expected. Even after the mountains seemed to be behind us, the route still held two substantial climbs and a drawn-out approach to the city. The San Salvador reminded us not to measure a Camino only by its total length. In a matter of days, it had carried us through a concentrated landscape of effort, history, companionship, and change.

Oviedo as an Ending and a Beginning

Oviedo marked the completion of the Camino de San Salvador, but it was certainly not the end of our pilgrimage. The cathedral was both a historic destination and an inspiring trailhead. From its plaza, the Camino Primitivo begins the westward journey to first the Camino Francés and then Santiago, following the tradition associated with King Alfonso II of Asturias and what is widely considered the oldest recorded Camino route.

This connection is one of the great strengths of the combined pilgrimage. The San Salvador does not simply deposit walkers in another city and leave them to arrange transportation elsewhere. Its endpoint flows naturally into the beginning of the Primitivo. A pilgrim can arrive in Oviedo, rest, visit the cathedral, and then continue walking without breaking the larger journey.

Even so, the shift from the San Salvador to the Primitivo was a change in more than just the route we were on.  The Primitivo – followed by many on the Norte, and popular in its own right - attracted more pilgrims than the San Salvador, and small groups began forming early. We were no longer crossing one concentrated mountain range but entering a longer route of repeated climbs and descents through rural Asturias and Galicia. The landscape remained rugged, yet the journey acquired a different social rhythm.

The Primitivo Through Rural Asturias

From Oviedo, the Camino Primitivo moved through rolling countryside, forest tracks, farms, and small communities. Hórreos stood beside fieldstone houses, cattle grazed on steep green hillsides, and villages appeared among valleys shaped by rivers and mountain ridges. The route was alive, with birds, snails, wildflowers, livestock, and the daily work of farms surrounding the trail.

The physical demands of the Primitivo (as they were on the Camino de San Salvador) continued, and the physical exhaustion was cumulative. Long climbs were often followed by steep descents, only for the route to rise again on the other side of a valley. Distances that might have felt modest on a map required sustained attention and effort. Yet the terrain and natural world encouraged presence – giving way to expansive views through breaks in the forest, natural beauty, and mist that transformed ordinary paths into landscapes that felt ancient and mysterious.

As the days progressed, familiar pilgrims became a Camino family. We shared cafés, albergues, uncertainty,  and stories. Watching those newer to long-distance trekking grow more confident on the trail became one of the pleasures of the journey. The Primitivo demonstrated how a route can preserve solitude without excluding community.

The Hospitales Route and the High Country

The Hospitales Route was the high point of the Primitivo in every sense. From the area around Campiello, the route climbs above the tree line and crosses exposed ridges where the ruins of medieval pilgrim hospitals remain in the open landscape. Weather is central to the experience, and the high route should only be attempted when conditions allow.

For us, it was wild, remote, and extraordinarily beautiful. For hours there was no bar, village, or easy shelter - only ancient ruins, grazing animals, mountain trails, and an immense sky. The trail tested our endurance, but it also offered wonder and beauty.

The route connected the practical reality of pilgrimage with its long history. The ruined hospitals were reminders that travellers had crossed these mountains long before modern waymarks, guidebooks, weather forecasts, or luggage transport. Walking past them made the continuity of the Camino feel tangible. This was not history observed from outside; it was a landscape we were moving through with the same basic needs for shelter, water, direction, and safe passage.

From the Mountains to Lugo

After traversing the mountainous north, the Primitivo continued through forests, agricultural valleys, and small Galician villages. In these stretches, dense fog often transformed the landscape, while old oak trees, moss-covered walls, eucalyptus stands, and sunken lanes created long green corridors. A deer materializing from the mist ahead of us and vanishing again became one of those brief encounters that captured the wonder of the route.

The approach to Lugo marked another change in our journey. The forests and hills gradually gave way to flatter agricultural land, larger settlements, and increasing numbers of pilgrims beginning near the minimum distance required for a Compostela. Entering Lugo through the Roman walls placed us inside a city that seemed to gather every layer of the journey - Roman history, medieval pilgrimage, modern tourism, and contemporary life.

We took a rest day to walk the complete circuit of Lugo’s walls, watch swifts and House Sparrows nesting among the stones, and visit the Cathedral of Santa María, as well as explore the regional museum.

The Final Days of the Primitivo

Leaving Lugo, we initially planned a very long stage to Melide. However, a combination of factors including a late night, a delayed start, hunger, and a sudden downpour changed those plans. By the time we reached Ferreira, cold and soaked, an unexpected room had become available at Casa da Ponte. Stopping there instead of forcing another twenty kilometres was an exercise in accepting what the day offered rather than clinging to an itinerary that ignored the realities of the moment.

The following morning, rain had brightened the countryside. Droplets clung to grasses and leaves, birds moved frantically through hedgerows, and the world seemed newly alive. We climbed through mist toward the Sierra del Careón, surrounded by gorse,  rocky outcrops, and the mountain’s ridge. It was one of the final times the Primitivo felt completely wild and remote.

From the heights, we could see Melide (the juncture of the Primitivo and Camino Francés) in the valley below. More pilgrims appeared as we descended, and cafés increasingly seemed designed exclusively for walkers. The quiet journey we had been on throughout the Camino de Madrid, Camino de San Salvador and Camino Primitivo was approaching its convergence with the busiest Camino in Spain.

Melide and the Return to the Camino Francés

In Melide, we paused to say goodbye to the Camino Primitivo and then continued on – returning to the Camino Francés. The change from one route to the other was both immediate and shocking. A dense line of pilgrims stretched down the trail, including organized groups carrying day packs and wearing matching Camino clothing. For a time, we had little choice but to adopt the pace of the people around us.

After weeks of choosing our own pace, it felt as though we had become part of someone else’s very slow group activity. The countryside remained beautiful, but it was harder to notice while avoiding hiking poles being waved around, passing slower groups, and trying not to obstruct faster walkers. A short alternative route gave us two kilometres of peaceful wooded road before we rejoined the procession.

The convergence highlighted both the gifts and compromises of the Francés. Cafés, food, accommodations, volunteers, and transportation were once again readily available. Indeed, the support was extraordinary. Yet the trail also felt more commercial and less connected to the communities it passed through. It was here that we fully came to see that for pilgrims arriving from the Primitivo or other quieter route, the final stages into Santiago can certainly be a cultural adjustment on the trail as much as a physical one.

The Busy Road to Santiago

Our final day from Arzúa to Santiago was defined by overcast skies, torrential rain, strong winds, and 38.5 kilometres of walking. We left before dawn, expecting a line of headlamps, but initially found ourselves alone. Streams flowed beside the forest path, the scent of flowering shrubs drifted through the darkness, and the lights of Arzúa slowly disappeared behind us.

As the rain intensified, many walkers of the walkers we did meet were collected by taxis and tour buses. The difficult weather unexpectedly returned some peacefulness to the pilgrim superhighway. We sloshed through eucalyptus forests, passed small Galician villages, crossed near the Santiago airport, and climbed toward Monte del Gozo in heavy mist. The cathedral spires remained hidden, denying us the traditional first view of Santiago.

Exhausted and cold as we wove through the holy city, we even became lost in the final urban kilometres, following a ring road instead of the Camino before finding our way back to the arrows. Our arrival in Plaza do Obradoiro was not the sunlit celebration people often imagine. The square was nearly empty in the pouring rain, and the few sodden pilgrims who arrived paused only long enough for a photograph and quick hug before searching for warmth and shelter.

What the Connected Journey Taught Us

Linking the Camino de Madrid, San Salvador, and Primitivo created far more variety than walking a single route from beginning to end. The Camino de Madrid taught independence and patience. The Francés offered support and community while revealing how much both the trail and we had changed. The San Salvador concentrated mountain beauty and companionship into a short, demanding crossing. The Primitivo extended that mountain pilgrimage through rural Asturias and Galicia before returning us to the crowded final approach to Santiago.

The connections also demonstrated that the Camino is not a ladder of routes ranked from easy to difficult or quiet to busy. Each serves a different purpose within the journey. The Francés was essential because it joined Sahagún to León and later carried us from Melide to Santiago. The less popular routes gave us freedom and closeness to nature, while the busy route provided services, shared experiences, and a powerful reminder that pilgrimage can be understood in many different ways.

For anyone considering this combination, the practical lesson is to plan the connections without trying to control every day. Accommodation and services may be unreliable in Madrid and limited in the mountains. Weather can determine whether the Hospitales Route is safe. Rest days in León, Oviedo, or Lugo may become necessary or simply worthwhile. The transition at Melide can feel overwhelming after weeks on quieter and more peaceful trails. Flexibility is not a failure of planning; it is one of the skills the pilgrimage teaches.

Most of all, this continuous route shows what becomes possible when the Camino is understood or reconceived as a network of routes. A pilgrim can leave Spain’s capital on foot, cross the Sierra de Guadarrama, traverse Castile, turn north from León into the Cantabrian Mountains, and then walk west from Oviedo along the oldest recorded route to Santiago. The result is not merely a way of linking three Camino series. It is a coherent pilgrimage whose changing landscapes and communities reveal how many different forms the Way can take.

See you on the Way!