Stage 10 -Ruitelán - Sarria

ByTravesía Pirenaica
French Way / Photo: Jynus_ (CC BY-SA 2.5)
French Way / Photo: Jynus_ (CC BY-SA 2.5)
  • Distance: 53.21 km
  • Maximum height:1347.5 m
  • Minimum height: 477.57 m
  • Positive difference in altitude: 1459.09 m
  • Negative difference in altitude: 1636.5 m

Way of Saint James TENTH STAGE

Today we are preparing to live one of those unique experiences that will remain in our memories for life, the ascent to the mythical Ocebreiro, 8 kilometres of ascent but of extraordinary hardness, the landscape makes us enjoy this ascent anyway.

Finally in this stage we reach Galicia, from here we leave Castile and its long stops behind us and enter some indescribable landscapes.

The climb can be done without any problems on the road, but there is always a tarmac lane for cyclists that runs parallel to the road.

We leave Ruitelán on the way to the village of Herrerías, just 2 km from the start, where the path starts to go uphill until we reach the Faba crossroads. It is not very hard, but from this point onwards and for the next 3 km the ramps will be extraordinarily steep and the vegetation becomes high mountain vegetation.

We arrive at Laguna de Castilla (the last village of León), although it seems that we have reached the top of the pass, we still have 2 km of hard ramps to go until we reach Ocebreiro (here the first official milestone shows 151 km to Santiago).

We are now in Galicia and the village shows us all its magic and splendour, we can see the valley to which we have to descend to finally enter Galicia through the province of Lugo.

From this point we have to be alert because it seems that when we reach Ocebreiro the ascent is over and nothing could be further from the truth, as soon as we leave the village we continue ascending for 2 km along a path in a forest to the top of San Roque, from here after a descent along a forest track , We reach Hospital de la Condesa and then we take a path of constant ascent that brings us closer to Padornelo (km 18), from this point we will have a short but very hard ascent to the top of Poio, the hard ascents of the stage are practically over (noting that Galicia is a constant slide that punishes our legs).climb

From this point we flatten out for 2 km to Fonfría (km 22), and begin a slight descent of 2 km to O Biduedo; from this point we prepare for a beautiful and complicated descent, along mountain tracks, of 7 km to the village of Triacastela (we descend some 500 metres).

At this point we are presented with the next fork in the path, either by San Xil or by Samos, although it is a little longer we opt for the Samos variant, to visit the monastery that gives its name to the town, by Xan Xil the path goes into the mountains and is a little harder, From Samos we take the fork to the left and follow a beautiful path next to the river Sarria (Oribio), passing through small villages (San Cristovo do Real, Renche, Freituxe and San Martiño), arriving at Samos and its beautiful monastery (km 45).

We leave Samos along the road to Teiguín, where we take a path that later becomes a track along the river, passing through tiny villages (Gorolfe, Reiriz and Sivil), we arrive at Aguiada where the two itineraries join, the San Xil and Samos itineraries and 4 kilometres further on we arrive at Sarria, our resting place and our first night in Magical Galicia, after this short, hard and emotional stage.

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