Camino de Santiago de Compostela

[grimgaunt]

A friend and I shall be flying into Oporto, Portugal and plan on taking the Sud Expresso to Irun to start the walk. Giving ourselves 23 days (including a stretch that we plan to bus it ) to get to Santiago.

One question I have is re: purchase of tickets for the Sud Express from Coimbra The 'cp' (Portugal transportation site) URL shows fares and schedules but there appears to be no way to actually buy a ticket online - any help appreciated

thanks

[peregrina2000]

Hi,
I think you're right that you can't buy international train tickets on the Portuguese website. But you should be fine with a couple days' advance purchase once you are actually in Portugal. I did a lot of train-riding last year when I was walking different segments of the Camino Portugues from Lisbon and never had a problem getting on at the last minute, even when I wanted to get on the high speed Lisbon-Porto train.

It sounds like you're arriving in Porto, and then going down to Coimbra. The train station in Porto is very centrally located, I'd just go there and buy the Coimbra-Irun ticket at the same time you get the ticket from Porto to Coimbra.

And just one thing about the Coimbra train station. There are actually two of them, and this long distance train leaves from "Coimbra B," which is a few km outside of town. When you buy your ticket, you will be given a time that shows departure from "Coimbra A", which is right in downtown, you'll take whatever local train is leaving around that time and will get off about 3 minutes later at Coimbra B where you wait for your train to Irun. (same thing, of course, when you're coming into Coimbra from Porto -- you should check to see whether your train stops at Coimbra A -- if it doesn't, get off at Coimbra B and hop on the train that is likely to be waiting there for you).


Laurie

[frescotours]

Here is a link with a nice summary of the Northern Camino in the Basque Country.
http://www.turismoa.euskadi.net/s11-96369/en/

Scroll down and look for:

THE ROAD TO SANTIAGO, TWO ROUTES THROUGH THE BASQUE COUNTRY
The Camino de Santiago, or Way of St. James, pilgrimage route used by pilgrims in the Middle Ages to reach Compostela (Galicia, on the peninsula's north-west), has two main routes in our community: the coast route between Hondarribia and Balamaseda; and the inland route, that passes through Alava. The former is a local route, built by the daily relationship between neighbouring villages. The second route is much older and was deliberately built to join the central plateau and the Basque and Pyrenean mountains.

You can download and print it as well!

Good luck and Buen Camino!

[grimgaunt]

thanks all. Look forward to beginning the journey next week