Route of the Camino Frances stage: El Burgo Ranero – Mansilla de las Mulas (18.8 km)
This stage of the Camino de Santiago Frances is the last stretch of pure meseta: 18.8 flat, straight kilometers from El Burgo Ranero to Mansilla de las Mulas, with a stop in Reliegos — famous for its earthen wine cellars and a meteorite — and finishing at one of the best-preserved medieval walls on the Camino.
KM 0
El Burgo Ranero
Leave El Burgo Ranero along the tree-lined path beside the road, with the lagoon and stork nests behind you. Thirteen kilometers in a straight line lead to Reliegos.
12.8 km
Reliegos
Reliegos is famous for two things: its <strong>wine cellars dug into earthen mounds</strong> and the meteorite that fell here in 1947. On the main street, Bar Elvis, its walls covered in pilgrims’ signatures. Church of San Cornelio y San Cipriano.
18.8 km
Mansilla de las Mulas
You enter past one of the best <strong>medieval walls</strong> on the Camino, which still encircles much of the old town. A livestock market town — hence “de las Mulas” (“of the mules”) — on the Esla river, with the church of Santa María and the Museo Etnográfico Provincial. This is where the meseta ends.
El Burgo Ranero – Mansilla de las Mulas: Complete Guide
Stage Profile: Distance, Elevation and Difficulty
Distance: 18.8 km. Walking time: 3h 45min – 4h 30min. Elevation change: practically none (+40 m / –50 m). Difficulty: low. This is the last stretch of pure meseta: flat, straight, along a comfortable path beside the road, with a single village along the way — Reliegos — at the 13 km mark. Easy and fast by bike.
Reliegos: Earthen Wine Cellars and a Meteorite
At the entrance to Reliegos, a row of earthen mounds is honeycombed with semi-underground wine cellars: cool chambers where families make and store their own homemade wine. The village’s other claim to fame fell from the sky: in 1947, three fragments of a meteorite struck here, one of the few falls in Spain with witnesses. And on the main street, Bar Elvis, its walls and ceiling covered in signatures, has become a Camino institution.
What to See: Monuments and Heritage
The wine cellars of Reliegos; in Mansilla de las Mulas, the walled enclosure from the 12th-13th centuries, Plaza del Grano, the church of Santa María, and the Museo Etnográfico Provincial de León, housed in a former convent. And along the way, the last wheat-field horizons before the city.
A Bit of History
Mansilla de las Mulas —Mansiella, ‘little hand,’ for its shape on the Esla— was a royal town with a wall and moat, an important livestock market and customs post on the road to León. Its four gates and its cobblestone-and-adobe towers are among the best preserved on the route. These villages line up along the Roman road that linked León —the Legio VII— with the meseta.
Gastronomy
León cuisine: cecina de León (PGI cured beef), morcilla (blood sausage), trout soup, and the first hints of cocido maragato appearing on menus. To drink, prieto picudo wine from the Tierra de León D.O., often served as a homemade clarete in the local wine cellars.
Practical Tips
A short, easy stage. Stop at Bar Elvis in Reliegos. Mansilla has a municipal hostel plus private ones; it’s 18 km from León, so many pilgrims sleep here and walk into the city the next day. Take a stroll along the town walls at sunset.
Services and Accommodation by Village
Listings published in our guide for the villages on this stage.
El Burgo Ranero
Hostels
Churches
Reliegos
Hostels
Churches
Mansilla de las Mulas
Hostels
Churches