La Mesa to Grandas de Salime
Descent
- Distance
- 16.3 km
- Climb
- 280 m up, 640 m down
- Ground
- 530 to 1,000 m
- Time
- 4 to 6 hours
- Difficulty
- moderate
- Underfoot
- mountain, dirt, forest
Where this day sits on the Camino Primitivo
Above, the highest and lowest ground of each of its 11 stages. Below, the word each day is given.
From open-pilgrimages: each stage's highest and lowest ground and its interior theme.
The day
Sixteen kilometres of descending. After yesterday's climb the body is grateful. You leave La Mesa in the morning cool and drop steadily through forest and small farms. The route follows a valley west, the path soft underfoot, the temperature rising as you lose altitude. By early afternoon you arrive in Grandas de Salime, a town that sits above a large reservoir (Embalse de Salime) created in the 1950s. The town's ethnographic museum is small but worth a visit — it documents the Asturian rural life that has been disappearing for generations. The albergue is comfortable and the wine is cheap. After yesterday this feels like a holiday.
What pilgrims often meet here
- The relief of a downhill day after the climb
- Finding wild blackberries along the path in late summer
- Visiting the Grandas de Salime ethnographic museum
- Realising you are now closer to Galicia than to Oviedo
How do you feel about descent? Is it always a relief, or does some part of you miss the climbing?
The ground
The light
Sunrise and sunset in La Mesa depend on the day you walk.
Walk it with Pilgrim
Pilgrim doesn't carry the Camino Primitivo as a route yet. You can still walk it with the app in Wander mode, speaking what arises and keeping it on your phone.