El Camino de Santiago. This is my fourth Camino. From Bilbao to Santiago is about 700km.

This Camino is called the Camino Olvidado or Camino Viejo – or forgotten way. There is an economy around the caminos and the businesses around each one try to make theirs special to bring in money to the rural communities. This one is really… forgotten. Many people have only heard of it and thought that is was just an old route that wasn’t active today. Well – that’s half true.

Many places on this route don’t have albergues/hostels and there are some very long stretches without towns big enough to have a bar – and that says something as in Spain the Bar/Cafe is many times the social center of towns. Because of the sparse pilgrim accommodations, it’s not well traveled. In fact they should rename this Camino to “Camino Solitario”. I saw one other pilgrim in Bilbao this morning but he was headed out on another route. I saw no one else – apart from the locals, bicyclists and fauna- including cows and goats.

Today was ~24km from Bilbao to Güeñez (weigh-nyez).

Here are some pics…