Routes of Santiago de Compostela: Camino F and Eglise Santa Maria de Soto de Luiña

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Routes of Santiago de Compostela: Camino F

   Tineo sits on a ridge in western Asturias, and for pilgrims walking the Camino Primitivo it is the place where the real mountains begin. This is the oldest of the routes to Santiago, said to have been walked by King Alfonso II in the ninth century when he went from Oviedo to the tomb of St James, and it climbs from the green hills around Oviedo into a wilder landscape of ridges and valleys that separates Asturias from Galicia. The town itself has about 11,000 people, a handsome old centre, a church and a pilgrim hostel, and the Camino passes through it on the way west.

   Read the complete Routes of Santiago de Compostela: Camino F write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Routes of Santiago de Compostela: Camino F is where the day begins. Next is Eglise et Monastère de San Salvador.

2. 2. Eglise et Monastère de San Salvador

   Pilgrims have been trudging past these walls for about a thousand years, which makes a motorcycle look like a rather recent idea. The monastery of San Salvador de Cornellana stands beside the Narcea river in central Asturias, on the old inland route to Santiago that runs west from Oviedo through Grado and Salas. It was founded in the eleventh century, passed to the Benedictines of Cluny, and the church that survives keeps Romanesque bones under later remodelling. The bulk of the cloister and the old monastic buildings give the little village a weight that seems out of proportion to its size.

   Read the complete Eglise et Monastère de San Salvador write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Eglise et Monastère de San Salvador comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Eglise Santa Maria de Soto de Luiña.

3. 3. Eglise Santa Maria de Soto de Luiña

   Soto de Luiña is a quiet parish in western Asturias, a short way inland from one of the wildest stretches of the Cantabrian coast, and its church of Santa María is the reason the village has a name beyond the region. The building is baroque, rebuilt in the eighteenth century around older foundations, and alongside it stands the former pilgrims' hospital that once took in walkers on the coastal Way of Saint James. The church's interior, with its gilded altarpieces, comes as a surprise in such a small place, and the whole ensemble gives a sense of how the Camino shaped even modest villages along the route.

   Read the complete Eglise Santa Maria de Soto de Luiña write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 65 km into the recorded legs you reach Eglise Santa Maria de Soto de Luiña. Next is back through Eglise et Monastère de San Salvador.

4. 4. back through Eglise et Monastère de San Salvador

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Eglise et Monastère de San Salvador write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Eglise et Monastère de San Salvador, late in the day. Next is Routes of Santiago de Compostela: Camino F.

5. 5. Routes of Santiago de Compostela: Camino F

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Routes of Santiago de Compostela: Camino F write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Routes of Santiago de Compostela: Camino F. That is the ride.