This is a camino for anyone who wants to leave the crowds of the well-known routes behind. Rugged, quiet and full of character. The Camino de las Asturias is older than the Camino Francés. As early as the 9th and 10th centuries, pilgrims walked this way along the foot of the mountains to Oviedo, the capital of the Kingdom of Asturias, and on from there to Santiago.
You start in Pamplona and walk via Vitoria-Gasteiz into the Valdegovía valley. This is where you’ll find Valpuesta, where the oldest written traces of Castilian have been discovered. After Reinosa and Brañosera, the route heads up into the mountains. Then the real work begins: climb after climb, sometimes rising almost 500 metres within 5 kilometres. You descend via the Puerto de Tarna to Oviedo, where the Camino Primitivo begins.
For long stretches you follow the red-and-white waymarks of the GR 1. Yellow arrows are few and far between, so take a GPS track with you. It is a lonely camino, in terms of facilities too.
The best time to walk it is in May or from August to October. From November to April it is cool and often rainy. A long day in the mountains can then quickly become a tough one.