9 days where is most beautiful hiking

[gypsyjennifer]

For all of you who have walked the Camino - I have 9 days. Arrive in Madrid and then will bus or train to the best place to start. I would like to walk an area with the best scenery and most interesting areas. Don't need to reach Santiago de Compostela. Just want some beautiful nature hiking. Any suggestions would be very welcomed. Can't seem to get a good view from the blogs. I realize walking the last 100 k's is the most popular but where is the most beautiful. Many thanks.

[Leslie]

I suggest to keeping it easy for yourself and start in any of the following, the route from all of these are good - Pamplona, Burgos, or Leon.

[Villagejonesy]

Hi gypsyjennifer, well for me, everything from Rabanal del Camino (where you pass to get to the Cruz de Ferro, the iron cross on the mountaintop), to O Cebreiro (the last big mountain before Santiago), to the oak forests that come before Santiago, was the most beautiful; also, the ocean at Fisterra was very special. Some of us found Santiago itself a bit anticlimactic, but found a wonderful, contemplative atmosphere, and tremendous natural beauty, in Fisterra. So, in fact, if you did walk the last leg, starting at Rabanal del Camino and walked to Santiago and then Fisterra, that would be the most beautiful walk, in my opinion. The views from O Cebreiro were so breathtaking, with endless, green pastures, like the English countryside, were something I wouldn't have missed for the world.

The walk through the Pyrenees, and the cathedral at Burgos, are stunning, too, if you decide to go a different route. I was also blown away by the ghost town of Ruesta, on the Camino Aragonese route from the Col du Somport. Buen Camino!