The Camino Mozárabe from Granada: 419.0 km to Mérida, and 1,193.3 km to Santiago

By August Frederik Kramer, who has walked the Camino twice · Last updated 19 September 2026

The Camino Mozárabe is the one route on this site that does not end at the cathedral. From Granada it runs 419.0 km to Mérida in 19 stages, and there it hands you to the Vía de la Plata. Everyone publishes the two halves as two routes. Joined at Mérida, where our line and the Plata’s carry the same node, Granada to Santiago is 1,193.3 km in 56 stages: 8 weeks to the day, the longest walk to the cathedral on this site, and 424.7 km more than the Camino Francés.

It is also a walk downhill. Granada sits at 693 m and Mérida at 218, so the route loses 475 m between them, and it climbs 4,452 m to do it: 10.6 m per kilometre, the second flattest of the ten routes behind only the Camino Portugués at 10.5. The exception comes early. Day 2, Pinos Puente to La Alhondiguilla, climbs 685 m to the route’s high point of 1,017 m at 28.9 m per kilometre, and ranks 15 of the 214 stages we measure across ten routes: one of the steepest 21 on the network, on the second-flattest route.

Hills to Alcaracejos, then the plain

To Alcaracejos the route climbs 3,554 m over 246.8 km and 11 stages, 14.4 m per kilometre: the hills above Granada, the long descent to the Guadalquivir at Córdoba on day 8, 174.0 km in, and the climb out of it over the Sierra Morena on day 9, 497 m to Estación de Obejo at 24.1 m per kilometre, the second of the route’s 2 days that climb 20 m or more per kilometre.

From Alcaracejos the hills stop. The last 172.2 km, 8 stages across the Extremadura plain to Mérida, climb 897 m between them, 5.2 m per kilometre: 41% of the distance carrying 20% of the climbing. Day 17, Don Benito to Santa Amalia, climbs 30 m in 19.0 km.

The 19 stages, measured

Generated from the route itself rather than copied from a guidebook, and split where our stage planner picks: 19 days averaging 22.1 km, the last column being metres climbed per kilometre walked. The distances are to Mérida, where this route ends, not to Santiago.

The longest day is day 11, Villaharta to Alcaracejos, at 34.9 km, on a stretch where the villages are far apart and our planner has nowhere closer to stop. Córdoba is the halfway city: 174.0 km in on day 8, with 245.0 km left to Mérida.

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Granada to Santiago: 1,193.3 km, 56 stages

At Mérida the Mozárabe ends where the Vía de la Plata passes: our last settlement on this route and the Plata’s Mérida are the same node, 0 m apart, so the join is a fact about the ground rather than about a name. From there the Plata has 774.3 km and 37 stages left to the cathedral, climbing 9,604 m on the way and crossing its high point of 1,352 m.

Added up, Granada to Santiago is 1,193.3 km, 56 stages and 14,056 m of climbing: 8 weeks without a rest day, against 768.6 km and 36 stages on the Francés. The Compostela’s 100 km line is on the Plata’s half, not this one; where it falls there and on every other route is in our guide to the last 100 km. If you are choosing between routes rather than reading about this one, our comparison of all ten routes puts all ten side by side, and the Camino Portugués is the only route that climbs less.

What this page does not measure

The other Mozárabe lines. Almería, Málaga and Jaén each have a waymarked Camino Mozárabe that joins this one on the way, and we hold none of them: every figure here is the Granada line’s. The Plata half of the sum is measured on our own corrected track rather than the app’s, and its settlement data is the sparsest on the site, which is why its stages are the ones we would most like to re-cut one day. Nothing here is about albergues, which change every season, or about heat, which every account of this route leads with and which we do not measure. What we publish is height and distance, along one line.

The full Camino Mozárabe route page: every stage, the elevation profile and the app

Common questions

How long is the Camino Mozárabe from Granada?

419.0 km from Granada to Mérida along our own track, in 19 stages averaging 22.1 km. It ends at Mérida, where it joins the Vía de la Plata.

How far is it from Granada to Santiago on foot?

1,193.3 km in 56 stages: 419.0 km of Mozárabe to Mérida and then 774.3 km of Vía de la Plata, joined at Mérida by position. That is 8 weeks of walking with no rest day.

Is the Camino Mozárabe hard?

By climbing it is the second flattest of the ten routes we measure, 10.6 m per kilometre, and it loses 475 m of height between Granada and Mérida. The hard days are early: day 2 climbs 685 m to 1,017 m, and day 9 out of Córdoba climbs 497 m over the Sierra Morena.

Where does the Camino Mozárabe join the Vía de la Plata?

At Mérida. Our last settlement on the Mozárabe and the Plata’s Mérida are the same map node, 0 m apart, with 774.3 km and 37 stages of Plata left to Santiago.

What is the highest point of the Camino Mozárabe?

1,017 m, on day 2 between Pinos Puente and La Alhondiguilla, which is also the steepest stage of the route at 28.9 m per kilometre and ranks 15 of the 214 stages we measure.

Can you get the Compostela on the Camino Mozárabe?

Not on this route alone, because it ends at Mérida rather than Santiago. The last 100 km into the cathedral are on the Vía de la Plata, which is where the certificate is earned.

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