Camino Sarria to Santiago de Compostela — Pazos & Historic Manor Houses Edition — Self-Guided From Sarria to Santiago de Compostela

Your arrival in Sarria already sets the pace of this special edition: you stay in a pazo, an old Galician manor house with gardens and stone walls. Spend the afternoon strolling along the Sarria River, where the terraces invite you to stop for a coffee, and learning the history of the pazo from your hosts. The walk starts tomorrow — today is for resting well.

Today you enter the final 100 km. The trail winds through meadows, stone walls and small villages such as Ferreiros and Mercadoiro, where the rhythm of rural Galicia seems unchanged for centuries. At the end, the descent to the Minho River brings you to Portomarín, where the Capela das Neves was also rebuilt on the new bridge after the reservoir flooded the original town.

A gently climbing stage through Hospital da Cruz and Ventas de Narón, with the small chapel of the Magdalena, a reminder of the old pilgrim hospitals. The Camino then continues through Airexe and Portos, always among wayside crosses and stone walls, to Palas de Rei, whose church of San Tirso preserves a Romanesque doorway.

The longest stage passes through San Xulián do Camiño and Casanova before entering the province of A Coruña and Melide, the ideal stop for lunch. You spend the night in Castañeda, home to the lime kilns of the Middle Ages: according to tradition, pilgrims carried limestone all the way from Triacastela to make the lime used to build the Cathedral of Santiago.

After picking up the trail again in the Arzúa area, the day takes you through Preguntoiro, Calzada and Boavista, among eucalyptus woods and small bridges over streams. In A Salceda, a pair of bronze boots honors Guillermo Watt, a pilgrim who died there just one day from Santiago — a pause that often moves people. The arrival in O Pedrouzo is easy, with no steep climbs.

The last stretch runs through the woods to Monte do Gozo, where the monument commemorating Pope John Paul II's 1989 visit marks your first view of the Cathedral towers. The descent continues along Rúa dos Concheiros, named after the scallop-shell sellers who once set up there for pilgrims, to the historic center and Obradoiro Square.

To close this special edition in the same spirit, visit the Hostal dos Reis Católicos on Obradoiro Square: founded in 1499 as a pilgrim hospital, it is considered one of the oldest hotels in the world. Then stroll through Praza da Quintana and the cloisters of the Colegio de San Xerome before the Pilgrim's Mass at noon.