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Parish Groups Tours on the French Way

Experience the Pilgrimage to the resting place of the Apostle Saint James with your community. Travel the Camino de Santiago with other members of your local parish for an enlightened journey that will bring you closer to God.

Follow the last 100 km (62 miles) of the French Way from Sarria to Santiago de Compostela staying in 3 or 4* spa hotels in the outskirts of the towns with your priest, a local guide, luggage transfers each day, bus support, private Mass in English each day, buffet breakfast & dinners, and the Ultreya Tours awards-winning service.

on request

  • Parish Groups Tours on the French Way INCLUDES

    • 7 nights in en-suite accommodation in 3 or 4* hotels with AC
    • A Pilgrim Kit per person including an official Pilgrim Passport (Credential), a waterproof zip bag, a scallop shell, a poncho, a sweet, luggage tags & detailed John Brierley guidebook
    • 7 early morning breakfasts and 7 buffet dinners (wine & water included)
    • Portage services for luggages
    • Private bus at disposition of the group, including Airport transfers, transfers to and from the Camino and the hotels, and walking support (waiting for the group every 3km)
    • Dedicated bilingual guide traveling with the group
    • Walkie-talkies and hand-held GPS devices for the group leaders
    • Chapel booking for Daily Masses with group priest
    • Pre-orders of the Compostelas, the Certificates of Achievement, and individual tubes for safe keeping
    • Large bottles of water provided each day for each participants
    • Emergency support from our local team in Santiago and in Palas de Rei
    • All taxes and gratuities for hotels

    price & dates

    This tour is aimed at large groups of between 20 and 50 participants. Individual, twin and triple rooms are available on request.

    Rates depend on the number of participants so please contact us for customized rates including extra activities, shorter walking days, travel insurance, stop-overs and day tours.

    •   fact file

      Accommodation  3 and 4* Spa Hotels
      Total Walking Distance  100 km
      Duration  8 days / 7 nights
      Overnight  Lugo, Palas de Rei and Montouto
      Stops  Sarria, Portomarin, Lestedo, Melide, Arzua, Pedrouzo
      Ends  Santiago de Compostela

    • highlights

      Get your Compostela
      Everyone gets the same experience with similar hotels each night
      Private Chapels booked each night for the group
      We take care of everything while you enjoy your pilgrimage

Looking for a different journey? You can choose to travel in coach and walk the best sections of the French Way from Pamplona in 11 days with your group, travel the French Way from Sarria to Santiago in luxury hotels (for smaller groups of up to 16 participants) or ask us to customize this tour.

what to expect on this tour?

A spiritual experience. This group is aimed for large parish groups and includes private Mass so you will have the opportunity to share an extraordinary experience with your priest and your community. Everything is taken care of so take your time to enjoy the moment and feel closer to God.

Note: The stops, activities and distances detailed in the tour itinerary are subject to accommodation availability. Ask us for a final itinerary based on your dates and requirements! We will happily customize this itinerary by adapting the number of days and the distances to your specific interests and needs! Learn more about our Services here.

Guided Tour with vehicle support

This coach tour includes 6 walking days where moderate levels of fitness are required. However, in case one of your group members does not feel like walking anymore, our support vehicle will be waiting every few kilometers to help them skip a section or or bring them directly to the next hotel. The driver will be accessible with a Talkie-Walkie and the guides will have hand-held GPS devices pre-loaded with the route to ensure they do not get lost.

The days have been shorten to ensure you are walking an average of 18 km a day (11 miles). As everyone will be walking in the same direction, take this opportunity to meet new people or introspect during your time alone. Mass will be either scheduled in small chapels along the route or near the hotels.

The group will leave the hotel in the morning at 8:30 am to avoid the heat and to be able to indulge during the afternoon in a siesta, use the hotels facilities, visit the village and have a drink in a local terrace.

A tour dedicated to religious groups

We require you bring you own minister for this tour so he can officiate Mass each day and lead the group spiritually on their journey. A single room will be provided by Ultreya Tours for him for no extra cost.

At the end of each walking day, we will have booked a private Chapel or a church on the Camino for your group. At arrival in Santiago de Compostela, you can either attend Pilgrim Mass at the main altar at 12 pm or 7:30 pm or we can pre-book the main Chapel for your group.

To ensure you do not have to worry about anything, we will have requested the Compostelas, the Certificates of Achievement of the Camino de Santiago, in advance and recommend you perform a delivery ceremony on the last night.

SLEEP IN COMFORTABLE 3 and 4 STAR SPA HOTELS

We take particular pride in the quality of our accommodation. We regularly visit and rate all our providers to ensure your group only stays in the best accommodation along the Way according to your budget and needs.

To simplify the logistics of traveling with a large group, we selected 3 hotels for the 7 nights of this walking pilgrimage. The hotels are based in the outskirts of Lugo, Palas de Rei (or Lalin) and Santiago and include a spa, swimming pool, rooms with AC and buffet meals. They work as Congress Hotels and offer great services for large groups including portage of luggages, room service and 24h reception.

Eat fresh, delicious & traditional meals

Dinners and breakfast will all be served in form of a buffet in each hotel. This allows us to cater for all dietary restrictions and offer a large choice of options to your group. A bottle of local wine per table of 4 and still mineral water is included during dinner.

Lunch is usually not included to allow the group to stop whenever they feel they need a break. But a warm meal or picnic can be prepared and left in the bus to take whenever the group is ready to eat.

We cater for vegetarians, vegans and any special dietary requirements or allergies. Just let us know beforehand so we can advise the chefs.

Add a pilgrimage to Lourdes or Fatima

The closest International airport to your Camino is Santiago de Compostela. But most of our groups arrive through Madrid, head to Lugo by bus to complete the Camino de Santiago and drive down to the Sanctuary of Fatima in Portugal for a couple days before returning to Madrid. Another popular option is to visit the Sanctuary of Lourdes in France at the end of the journey.

We can help you choose and book those extra nights before or after your tour and organize day tours around Galicia to, for example, the beautiful Cies Islands, or to Finisterre or extra activities during the tour (wine-tasting, Balneotherapy, guided City tours or much more. Check out our selection of Day Tours in Galicia and European Stop-Overs or let your imagination run wild and let us know let us know how you would like to make this tour unique.

The Parish Groups Tour on the French Way DAY BY DAY ITINERARY

This 7 nights route brings you along the last 100 km (62 miles) of the Camino Frances - French Way into Santiago de Compostela.

Map and elevations of the last 112 km of the Camino de Santiago from Sarria to Santiago

day 1 - Making your Way to your starting point of the Camino

Our driver will pick you up at Santiago Airport and drive you to your first spa hotel, where you will spend the next 3 nights while you walk from Sarria to Palas de Rei. The hotel with a swimming pool and a thermal circuit is located in the outskirts of the UNESCO World Heritage City of Lugo, a city famous for its impressive Roman Wall built between the 3rd and 4th centuries AD.

A buffet dinner will be served at your hotel after a welcome Mass in a nearby chapel and depending on your arrival time you might have time to discover the City.

day 2 - 10 km - Walk from Morgade to Portomarin

Finally, this is the day you start your pilgrimage! After a short 30 min drive to Sarria, our driver will leave you at the main church Sarria, so you can get your first stamp on the French Way before heading 12 km further to the 100 km market where we will start our journey on the Camino de Santiago. Walk along easy paved trails through beautiful countryside, meadows and oak woods, charming villages with slate roofs towards a huge medieval bridge. Expect some steep uphill and downhill at some point today, but it will be made up by the beauty of the route. Your destination today is the unique town of Portomarin, a replica of the Medieval town relocated in the 60s rock by rock to avoid floods. We will attend Mass in Portomarin in the main church of the town before heading back to the same hotel near Lugo as yesterday for our second night.

day 3 - 20 km - Walk from Portomarin to Lestedo

After a 20 min drive back to Portomarin, we leave the small town on a bridge over the artificial lake of Belesar. The next kilometers will then be uphill through woodlands into the hamlet Gonzar. Near Castromaior, the path borders the ruins of a 2200 years old Celtic Castro, and in Ligonde, you will find a hospital which received the emperor Charles V and his son Philip II, the most famous pilgrims of the sixteenth century.

Once passed Lestedo, our driver will bring us back to Lugo taking a short detour to the Romanesque church of Vilar de Donas, where we will find one of the most striking examples of Galician Romanesque Architecture and the burial place of several knights of the Order of Santiago. 

We will spend our last night in Lugo so make sure you visit the old town of Lugo during the free time between Mass and dinner.

day 4 - 18 km - Walk from Lestedo to Melide

After a 25 min drive back to Lestedo, walk the remaining kilometers into Palas de Rei, where you should stop to visit the town church and maybe enjoy a coffee in one of the many bars. You then have about 4h left to walk before reaching Melide. Make sure to arrive in time for lunch (2pm in Spain) as Melide is renown for having the oldest surviving cruceiro (calvary) in the world and for the best "Pulpo a la Gallega" (Octopus) in Galicia.

Once in Melide, we will drive you to your hotel for the next couple days. Choose from a 3 star spa hotel with a Celtic inspired architecture, thermal waters just South of Palas de Rei and with gorgeous views onto a lake or a modern 4 star hotel 25 min South near the town of Lalin. Mass will be celebrated in a chapel near the hotel.

day 5 - 14 km - Walk from Melide to Arzua

After a transfer back to Melide, continue your journey through the peaceful Galician countryside. You will find by now, the way you live the Camino is changing. As your body and feet are getting used to the activity, the path becomes gentler. Take it in and enjoy this time-off from your busy life to think, relax and interact with fellow pilgrims.

You have done more than half of your journey but the best parts are still to come. You will be walking into Arzua, which is famous for its peculiarly shaped cheese, where our driver will pick you up and bring you back to your Spa hotel 40 min South of the Camino.

day 6 - 19 km - Walk from Arzúa to O Pedrouzo

After a 40min transfer back to Arzua continue your way towards the City of the Apostle with the destination of O Pedrouzo today. With only 40 km left before Santiago, you will notice the atmosphere along the Way is changing as people plan to celebrate their arrival and start realizing it will soon be time to part with people they might have been walking with for a month. The countryside itself changes as you enter forest with totally symmetric rows that produce curious visual effects. The villages you pass virtually have no name and seem stuck in time.

Stop in O Pedrouzo or continue as far as you can before asking your driver to bring you to a 4* spa Hotel 20 minutes away and South of Santiago.

day 7 - 20 km - Walk from O Pedrouzo to Santiago

This is it! After a 20min drive back to O Pedrouzo, only twenty kilometers separate you from your goal. On your last walking day on this pilgrimage, you will cross Lavacolla’s river, where traditionally pilgrims would bath and clean their clothes - and hence purifying their soul - before stepping into the Cathedral.

You will then climb up to Monte do Gozo (Mount of joy) which offers stunning views on the City before walking into the Medieval Town, which you will enter via the “Camino Door”. A few minutes later, you will finally pass the Azabachería Door, the official entrance to the Cathedral on a non-Holy year (in 2021 you will be able to enter through the Holy Door on the Quintana Square), and continue down to the Plaza del Obradoiro. You have finally finished the Camino de Santiago!

Enter now if you wish, we recommend continuing down to the Plaza del Obradoiro and simply stopping there. Breath in and truly live this moment, do whatever feels right.

You will have free time for lunch and to visit the city before we drive you back to last night's hotel (5min drive away) for a quick shower and nap before returning to the Cathedral for Pilgrim Mass at 7:30 pm and dinner in the old town!

day 8 - Start of your next adventure

A wise pilgrim once told us “the real Camino starts where the Camino de Santiago finishes but I will not be afraid because the Camino will always be there for me.”

We hope the Camino has brought you whatever you were looking for and wish to see you again soon!

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only 4 steps away from your journey

Step 1   After you have filled in our inquiry form and clicked 'Submit', a Camino Planner will get back to you with a personalized quote within 24h or contact you over the phone for further details

Step 2   Once you are satisfied with the Terms & Conditions of your tour, we will invoice you for a non-refundable 50% deposit of the total price to process the booking - we currently offer two modes of payment: bank transfers & credit card payments via a secured page of our website (we will add an extra 1,50% if paying with American Express - VISA & MasterCard free).

Step 3   Ultreya Tours Reservations Team will start booking your accommodation, meals, activities, guides and other services immediately after receiving the initial deposit and send you your hotel vouchers as soon as they are ready

Step 4   30 days before the departure, we will request the 50% remaining deposit and we will send your pilgrim kits directly to your first hotel along with printed versions of your vouchers, your scallop shells and guidebook

To make sure we constantly meet your expectations, we will regularly follow up with you and keep you updated throughout the whole process and until you come back home.

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