La Virgen del Camino

La Virgen del Camino is a municipality in the province of León, just west of the León metropolitan area. The town is built around the Sanctuary of the Virgin of the Camino, a site of Marian apparition first documented in 1505, when the Virgin is said to have appeared to a shepherd named Alvar Simón.

The current basilica, designed by the Dominican friar Francisco Coello de Portugal and completed in 1961, is a striking work of Spanish Modernism with a massive horizontal facade bearing twelve monumental bronze sculptures by José María Subirachs, the Catalan sculptor also associated with the Sagrada Família in Barcelona. The statues of the apostles are among the most distinctive contemporary religious sculptures on any Camino route.

The town is also the point where the Camino Sanabrés, a variant arriving from the south via the Via de la Plata, joins the Camino Frances.