Hello, Just made it thorugh the whole camino alive and I´m vegetarian.
Most vegetarians I met along the way tried to stay in the albergues that had kitchens and made their own food (lots of chick peas, lentils and salads etc). It was usuallly fairly easy to find albergues with kitchens but I struggled a bit across the meseta and also in very small villages sometimes if there is just one bar offering a pilgrim menu the albergue might well not offer a kitchen (presumably so the bar gets the money?). In big towns there was almost always a kitchen.
If you want to eat out be very caareful about ordering. If you eat fish you will probably find you will be eating fish almost constantly. Almost all salads in spain seem to come with tuna on for some reason so if you don´t eat fish be sure to ask for "sin carne" AND "sin pescado". Or just ask for a salad without tuna.
Also be very careful with soups. Even vegetable soups come with meat in. Most soups are made with meat stocks so even if you ask for a vegetable soup without meat you will almost certainly be given vegetable soup made with meat. I haven´t eaten meat for about 18 years and it makes me very sick, I got very ill a few times on the french route last year and once this year eating "vegetable" soup so now I avoid soup entirely. I guess it depends how fussy you are about how "vegetarian" you like your soup.
Sometimes people can be very understanding, the last pilgrim meal I had I left the soup and the chef came out to ask me what was wrong with his food. When I explained about the meat stock he gave me a lovely vegetarian salad and made me a really nice egg pasta diah as well. Mostly though don´t expect the spainsh to truly understand the concept of vegetarianism.
Please remember though that you won´t starve as virtually EVERY single bar in spain has Tortilla a vegetarian staple. Whatever restaurant/bar/albergue you are in you´ll pretty much always be able to order tortilla as an alternative..... Wow, I´ve had a lot of Tortilla!
Good Luck!
