Santander to Santillana del Mar
Santillana the beautiful
- Distance
- 36.3 km
- Climb
- 540 m up, 470 m down
- Ground
- 0 to 150 m
- Time
- 8 to 10 hours
- Difficulty
- hard
- Underfoot
- urban, paved, coastal, forest, dirt
Where this day sits on the Camino del Norte
Above, the highest and lowest ground of each of its 34 stages. Below, the word each day is given.
From open-pilgrimages: each stage's highest and lowest ground and its interior theme.
The day
The longest day of the Norte deserves the prettiest ending. Santillana del Mar is a medieval stone village preserved in amber — Unamuno famously called it 'the town of three lies' because it is neither holy (santa), nor flat (llana), nor on the sea (mar). But the Colegiata de Santa Juliana, a 12th-century Romanesque collegiate church with a cloister that is one of the finest in Spain, is real. The whole village is a national monument and part of the 2015 UNESCO inscription. In summer it is overrun with tourists; in April or October it is perfect.
What pilgrims often meet here
- The long urban exit from Santander in the morning light
- The Mogro dilemma: train to skip the bridge-less crossing, or commit to the full 36 km
- First sight of Santillana's stone village at the end of a 10-hour day
- The Colegiata cloister in late afternoon light
- Unamuno's quote: the village of three lies
You walked 36 km to a village that is beautiful because nothing has changed in 900 years. What does preservation mean on a Camino whose whole point is movement?
The ground
The longest single stage of the Norte in most guides — 36.3 km from the Santander Cathedral to Santillana del Mar. Urban exit through Peñacastillo and Bezana, then rural farmland through Mogro (with its ferry across the Pas river), Boo, Requejada, and into Santillana. Most pilgrims split this at Boo de Piélagos (~20 km) where the train station allows a legal rail connection to skip the bridge-less Pas river crossing.
The light
Sunrise and sunset in Santander depend on the day you walk.
Walk it with Pilgrim
In Pilgrim's Honor mode you can walk this stage as it is drawn here, and save its maps for days with no signal. The morning opens with this day's word, Santillana the beautiful, and its story. When you arrive, it asks the question above, and you can answer out loud. Your walk stays on your phone.
With Pilgrim on your phone, this opens the stage, ready to begin. Without it, you'll see the stage and where to get the app.