French Way SectionsSelf-Guided from Logroño to Burgos

Welcome to Logroño, the Capital of La Rioja, which is best known for its excellent red wine! Rioja tinto is a blended wine made from the Spanish grape Tempranillo with smaller quantities of other grapes. You can decide to spend the whole day discovering this great city, enjoying its wonderful tapas in Calle Laurel and visiting one of the wineries within walking distance of the city. Or take a taxi to visit Laguardia, a fortified medieval town 20-minute drive away, considered the center of La Rioja Wine country, where you will be able to visit a 600 years old winery and architectural award-winning contemporary wineries like Marqués de Riscal.

Leave the old town of Logroño via an old gate called la Puerta del Camino - The Camino Door. The path leads you through San Miguel Park to Parque de la Grajera and its beautiful lake (a reservoir constructed in 1883). You will walk among vineyards and wide valleys to the historical Jacobean town of Navarrete, where you will come across the ruins of the old Pilgrim Hospital of San Juan de Acre (founded in 1185), remains of an old castle and ceramics workshops.

Leave the town past the ruins of the Hospital of San Juan de Acre and continue across the rich red-clay landscapes of La Rioja toward Nájera. Set between ochre cliffs and the River Najerilla, Nájera was once the capital of the Kingdom of Navarra and preserves a remarkable medieval heritage. Take time to discover the Monastery of Santa María la Real and the town’s lively riverside setting.

Continue across La Rioja’s red-earth trails toward Santo Domingo de la Calzada, one of the most emblematic towns on the French Way. Depending on availability, tonight’s stay may be in the four-star Parador housed in the former 12th-century pilgrims’ hospital beside the Cathedral. The town is famous for the legend of a roasted cock and hen that returned to life to prove an innocent pilgrim’s case; a live pair is still kept in the Cathedral in memory of the miracle.

Today, you enter the region of Castilla y León, the medieval kingdom that led the "reconquest" of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors, gave birth to modern Spain and gave the world Castilian Spanish. Unfortunately, a busy road was constructed over the historical Camino that Santo Domingo did so much to improve. But we enjoy walking through the various villages on our way to Viloria de Rioja - the birthplace of Santo Domingo.

Pass Villamayor del Río before reaching Belorado, an important medieval Camino town set in the valley of the Río Tirón, beneath the ruins of a 10th-century castle. Continue toward Villafranca Montes de Oca, once a significant Roman settlement and later an important pilgrim stop with several churches and hospitals. Today this quiet village, with barely more than a hundred inhabitants, marks the gateway to the wooded Montes de Oca.

The Camino brings you on a glorious journey through the forests of the Montes of Oca, the mountains of the goose, to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Atapuerca, where the oldest records of humans in Europe were found. These mountains were once feared by medieval pilgrims who were often attacked by bandits, hiding in the mist. Refuges were built by San Juan de Ortega, the disciple of Santo Domingo, to offer pilgrims places to rest and wait for the weather to improve. They are now home to works of art from thousands of pilgrims who walked by. The "Oasis of the Camino" is one of

Today, the Camino will lead you to the UNESCO World Heritage City of Burgos. There is a new path into Burgos following a pretty river and avoiding a long industrial stretch, make sure you follow our digital map to find it. The splendid City of Burgos is home to one of the most magnificent Gothic Cathedrals and the final resting place of the Spanish national hero El Cid. If you can, we highly recommend spending an extra day here to discover everything this wonderful city has to offer.

You have accomplished this challenge and reached Burgos, but there are still over 490 km left to reach Santiago de Compostela, the end of the Camino de Santiago and the resting place of the Apostle Saint James. We hope this section of the French Way has brought you whatever you were looking for and that it made you want to discover more of the Camino and Northern Spain. It is time to rest now!