Putting off your start date runs the risk of more pilgrims looking for beds and hotter conditions on the Meseta. As the Scandinavians say, "there's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing."
I'll be a couple of weeks ahead of you and have dealt with the same anxiety by booking at Orisson, as SYates suggests. It will make for a short day, but that's not a bad thing on the first day.
There's a lot of good advice in this thread, but the key "take-away" is that we're not all the same. Finding the right footgear is a very personal thing. Seeing a Podiatrist is certainly one way to do that, but I've gotten very good advice from the Kiwi sales assistant who handles shoes at my...
Whoever said that the subject of poles elicits a variety of strongly-held opinions wasn't wrong! My comment is a plea not to experiment with cheap poles. Get good ones. Like Kanga, I use Black Diamond carbon fibre poles. They are very light and easily (very easily) break down into three...
One reason for flying through a London airport is to break the journey across time zones. I am an 84-year old pilgrim-to-be from the US, and I plan to take three days in London en route to St Jean PdP. (I have family there.) I hope this will be enough to get over the jet lag before I fly on...
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