The Original Way, Named for a King and a Discovery

The Primitive Way claims to be the oldest road to Santiago, and the claim rests on a single early journey rather than on continuous use.

Over the mountains from Oviedo

The route runs from Oviedo in Asturias over the mountains through Lugo and rejoins the French road at Melide for the final two days into Santiago. It is short but strenuous, crossing high and exposed ground, and it passes the great pre-Romanesque churches of the Asturian capital, which are themselves a monument to the kingdom that first took an interest in the shrine.

The claim to priority

The name rests on the tradition that Alfonso II of Asturias travelled from Oviedo to the newly declared tomb of James in the ninth century, which would make his the first recorded pilgrimage to Compostela. Oviedo was the capital of the small Christian kingdom that survived in the north, and a royal journey from there is the earliest the tradition names, so the route can reasonably call itself the original one. It was inscribed by UNESCO in 2015 together with the other northern routes.