The Hospitales Route: A Full Moon and 48km to Fonsagrada

Everyone who's walked the Primitivo will tell you about the Hospitales route before you even ask. It's the high alternative over the mountains between Pola de Allande and Berducedo, named for the ruined pilgrim hospitals that used to shelter travelers along the ridge, and it's a big part of why people choose this Camino over the flatter, more crowded Frances.

I left before 6am under what I'm fairly sure was a full moon, bright enough that I didn't bother with my headlamp for the first half hour. Windy, but not cold, and the trail climbed easily at first, more gently than the reputation had led me to expect. Most things you brace for turn out that way. A little van parked at a junction partway up sold me a coffee and a slice of cheesecake that had no business being that good at altitude, and I sat for ten minutes just watching the wind move across the ridgeline before the real descent started.

The way down the other side is steep, no way around it, past a cool abandoned stone house that looked like it had been empty for decades, through the tiny hamlet of Borres, and into Berducedo by early afternoon. The albergue there sat above a bar and smelled exactly like you'd expect a room above a bar to smell, but the hospitalero let me draw cash against my card since the nearest ATM was three days away in Lugo, which is the kind of small kindness that keeps this Camino running on trust more than infrastructure.

The 48km day

Berducedo to Fonsagrada is the stage everyone warns you about, and for once the warnings undersold it. Heavy rain had fallen overnight, which meant the steep initial descent out of town was slick enough to take seriously. I timed my start so the sun would be up before the first technical section, and it worked out close to perfect.

What followed was a long, quiet day. Long stretches without services, a steady climb back up and over another rise, and eventually the descent down to a dam that sits in a genuinely striking valley, fogged in completely when I started down and clear by the time I reached the bottom. Then more climbing out the other side, mostly on road this time, before a final stretch that felt endless in the way only the last six kilometers of a 48km day can feel.

Somewhere in the middle of all that I crossed the border from Asturias into Galicia without any real ceremony, just a sign and a slightly different feel to the stonework in the next village. I checked into the first albergue with a bed in Fonsagrada a little after six in the evening, having covered close to 50 kilometers, and did the two things a day like that calls for: ate, and didn't move again until morning.

Closing thought

The Hospitales route earns its reputation, but it's the day after it, the long, unglamorous push into Fonsagrada, that actually tests you. Nobody writes trail guides about the unremarkable middle third of a 48km day, but that's usually where a Camino actually happens. The full elevation profiles for both days are worth a look if you're weighing whether to combine these stages yourself. If you're planning a version of this stretch, mycaminoguide.com has the practical details.

Next in this series: Lugo's Roman Walls and the Long Push South. The fog and first days out of Oviedo that led here are in Camino Primitivo: Fog, Eucalyptus, and a Vanishing Pilgrim. Or hit subscribe to follow along.