O Cádavo (Baleira) to Lugo
Rome
- Distance
- 30.5 km
- Climb
- 380 m up, 640 m down
- Ground
- 460 to 760 m
- Time
- 8 to 10 hours
- Difficulty
- hard
- Underfoot
- dirt, forest, paved, urban
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
Thirty kilometres. The longest day. You leave O Cádavo before dawn and walk west through Galician forest for hours, through Castroverde where many pilgrims stop, and then on the final long approach to Lugo. You see the city walls before you see the city. They rise out of the modern outskirts: ten metres tall, two kilometres long, seventy-one towers, the only complete Roman walls left in the world. You walk under one of the gates and into a Roman city that has been continuously inhabited for 2,000 years. The cathedral is a few minutes from the gate. The albergue is just inside the wall. You climb the walls themselves at sunset — it's free, they're open all the time — and walk the entire two-kilometre circuit looking down at the city Alfonso II would have known.
What pilgrims often meet here
- The first sight of the Roman walls rising above the modern city
- Walking under one of Lugo's gates and into the Roman heart of Galicia
- Climbing the walls at sunset and walking the full 2 km circuit
- Pulpo a feira and Galician wine in a Lugo bar after a thirty-kilometre day
How does it feel to enter a city through walls built before Christianity reached Spain?
The ground
Longest day of the Camino Primitivo at 30.5 km. Some pilgrims split it by overnighting in Castroverde (about halfway). Mostly downhill but with sustained walking through forest, ending with the dramatic entry into walled Roman Lugo.
- Longest day on the Primitivo (30.5 km). Many pilgrims split it at Castroverde to avoid exhaustion.
The light
Sunrise and sunset in O Cádavo (Baleira) 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.