Camino de Santiago – French Way Map
The French Way or Camino Frances is the most well known of the Camino pilgrim paths and goes for 775km across northern Spain.
Many thousands of pilgrims make the journey by starting in St Jean Pied de Port, just over the border in France, but walkers and cyclists start at all points along the way.
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Our Camino de Santiago Map
Sarria, which is 116km from Santiago, is the most popular starting point. The reason is because in order to gain the compostela from the cathedral in Santiago, one must have walked at least 100km to Santiago, this is why Sarria is so popular, particularly with Spanish pilgrims.
There are many other popular starting places along the Camino Frances. Here are a number of popular places.
St Jean Pied de Port Camino
Very popular with international pilgrims, St Jean is just over the border in France and is also the end point of Caminos from other parts of France, including the Le Puy route. St Jean is easily accessible by train or bus from Bayonne and there is a season bus service from Spain too, provided by Alsa.
Pamplona Camino
The city made famous by the running of the bulls is a very popular starting point for the Camino Frances also. It is the first major city along the route and is a very popular start point for Spanish. Pamplona is easy to get to from Madrid and other parts of Spain.#
Burgos Camino
Burgos is one of the main cities along the Camino de Santiago and is a popular starting place, at just under 500km from Santiago. It would take on average 25 days to walk to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Burgos itself is a wonderfully vibrant city to spend a few days and is just before the Meseta, the flat vast expanse that will be the pilgrim’s main environment for a couple of weeks.
Leon Camino
Leon is another major stop on the Camino Frances and is also a popular starting point for pilgrims. It’s very accessible from Madrid and is around 310 km to Santiago. There is a lot to see in Leon, least not it’s splendid cathedral, one of the most handsome in all of Spain.
Astorga Camino
Astorga is at the junction of the Camino Frances and the Via de la Plata, which starts in Seville. Some pilgrims start their journey from Astorga as it’s a pretty accessible town. It’s a wonderful small place to walk around and has a very good public albergue too.
The Way of St James
The Camino France is just one of many Caminos in Spain. There are probably over 50 throughout the country!
The starting points tend to be major towns and cities. Caminos actually start all over Europe too, but all roads lead to Santiago de Compostela!
You may also like our map of all the Camino routes…
There are many other Caminos that start from many destinations right across Spain.
The more popular Caminos include the Portuguese Camino, particularly starting in Porto. The Camino Norte starts in Irun and runs across the north coast of Spain to Santiago, eventually joining the French way just a few stops away.
The Via de la Plata, combines with the Camino Sanabres are becoming popular routes now, but are best started outside of summer, where temperatures in Andalusia can be very high, particularly around Sevilla!