Caminantes

Camino Portugués elevation profile

605.5 km and 6,839 m of ascent,between -1 m and 489 m. Measured from the route's own GPS track rather than copied from anywhere, which matters more than it should: almost every ascent figure published for these routes, including ours until August 2026, was an estimate nobody could source.

0100200300400500050100150200250300350400450500550600489 m

Metres up the side, kilometres along the bottom. Ticks are stage boundaries. Sampled every 100 m against SRTM 30m, smoothed over 500 m, climbs under 3 m discarded as noise.

Move across the profile to read any point, or drag to measure a stretch. With the keyboard: focus the profile, then arrow keys to move, shift for finer steps, Enter to start and end a measurement, Escape to clear. Each stage in the table below can also be measured directly.

What the profile shows

The Camino Portugués climbs 11.3 m per kilometre on average, which makes it the second gentlest of the 10 routes measured here. A total on its own mostly measures how long a route is; per kilometre is what decides whether your days feel hilly.

The climbing is not spread evenly. The final third of the route carries 45% of the total ascent (23%, 32% and 45% across the three thirds), so pace yourself for that section rather than for the average.

The longest sustained climb runs from km 427 to km 434, gaining 403 m over 7.3 km, an average grade of 5.5%. The high point, 489 m, comes at km 175, 29% of the way in.

The hardest days

Ranked by climbing rather than distance, which is a different list and the one that decides how the evening feels.

  • Day 20, Barcelos to Vitorino dos Piães — 650 m over 23.9 km
  • Day 28, Padrón to Santiago de Compostela — 597 m over 23.1 km
  • Day 7, Tomar to Alvaiázere — 580 m over 30.3 km
  • Day 22, Brandara to Valença — 572 m over 31.7 km
  • Day 19, Vila do Conde to Barcelos — 426 m over 29.3 km

Every stage

Measured ascent for every stage of the Camino Portugués
DayFromTokmAscentHigh point
1LisbonPóvoa de Santa Iria19.726 m28 m
2Póvoa de Santa IriaCastanheira do Ribatejo18.997 m54 m
3Castanheira do RibatejoVirtudes18.449 m21 m
4VirtudesSantarém26.8101 m110 m
5SantarémGolegã31.2115 m110 m
6GolegãTomar27.5232 m123 m
7TomarAlvaiázere30.3580 m355 m
8AlvaiázereAlvorge21.3354 m489 m
9AlvorgeCondeixa-a-Nova18.377 m277 m
10Condeixa-a-NovaCoimbra15.5203 m182 m
11CoimbraMealhada23182 m146 m
12MealhadaÁgueda25.5214 m81 m
13ÁguedaBranca23.2382 m276 m
14BrancaSão João da Madeira19.8323 m310 m
15São João da MadeiraArgoncilhe15.4175 m305 m
16ArgoncilheVila Nova de Gaia15.9155 m226 m
17Vila Nova de GaiaPerafita17.4122 m103 m
18PerafitaVila do Conde16.458 m14 m
19Vila do CondeBarcelos29.3426 m269 m
20BarcelosVitorino dos Piães23.9650 m476 m
21Vitorino dos PiãesBrandara15.456 m369 m
22BrandaraValença31.7572 m394 m
23ValençaO Porriño20.9183 m74 m
24O PorriñoRedondela16.4230 m229 m
25RedondelaPontevedra20.4305 m150 m
26PontevedraCaldas de Reis21.3178 m123 m
27Caldas de ReisPadrón18.6185 m163 m
28PadrónSantiago de Compostela23.1597 m338 m

Stages are a suggested split, not a rule. Most people walk their own.

Where the numbers come from

The GPS track carries position but no height, so the altitude was measured rather than read off: 6,055 points along the route, one every 100 m, each looked up against the SRTM 30 m elevation dataset.

One check worth stating, because it is the difference between plausible and correct. Total ascent minus total descent comes to +225 m. The profile's own start and finish differ by +229 m, so the two agree to within 4 m over 605.5 km.

They do not match exactly, and the reason is the noise floor: climbs under 3 m are discarded as sensor jitter, which removes a little real height along with a lot of imaginary height. A tool claiming these two numbers agree perfectly would be hiding that.

Ascent depends on method. Sample more finely and you measure noise as climbing; smooth harder and you flatten real hills. Anyone quoting a single authoritative number for a route this long is hiding that choice, so the settings used here are stated above and you can compare like with like.

The Camino Portugués page says 620 km and this track measures 605.5 km, a difference of 2.3%. Both are right. The quoted distance is the conventional one every guide and waymarking sign uses; the measured one is the length of this particular GPS trace, and any two traces of the same route differ by roughly this much depending on which variant they take through each town. The ascent above is computed along the track shown here, so it belongs with 605.5 km rather than with the quoted figure.

Route facts, stages and the full description are on the Camino Portugués route page. Every route's profile is on the tools page.

Compare with another route

All measured the same way, so the numbers are comparable. Ordered by total ascent, hardest first.