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Boots if you’re climbing the Matterhorn, well padded trainers or trail shoes for Caminos. I used Adidas trainers with padded insoles for the Portuguese, Primitivo and the Frances. Didn’t notice the cobblestones. My wife swears by Hokas. Comfort, comfort, comfort should be your mantra.
Note : you may want to replace maps.me which is now owned by a finance company with an opaque history and privacy controls with organic maps, open source and by the same developers. It works exactly like maps.me but without the user tracking stuff. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maps.me).
Hi, four of us left St. Jean yesterday and are now in Zubiri. Roncevalles was far from crowded and the hostel where we’re staying today is less than half full. We left St. Jean at 6:20 am and saw one pilgrim ahead of us, none behind. We met maybe 30 altogether en route to Roncevalles. At the...
Hi, four of us are starting out from St. Jean next Thursday 9th June to walk the Frances once more. We’ll be staying in the albergue in Roncevalles on Thursday night and are wondering whether we need lightweight sleeping bags rather than our ultralight silk liners. I can’t recall whether...
I’ve always used maps.me for which some very helpful Dutch people created a set of KML files of routes and accommodation on all of the major Caminos. Maps,me was open source but has become somewhat commercialised so the original founders forked the code into a new app called Organic Maps which...
One other comment. You’re bound to have been told to keep your rucksack as light as possible. This really is important. Walking 25km day after day has a huge impact on knees, shoulders etc. Aim for around 7kg total weight including pack and 500g water. This will make the walk so much more...
I walked the Cumbria way some years ago in fairly heavy duty shorts with separate underpants and had the most awful chafing. Have since walked a couple of thousand km on Caminos in extremely lightweight Rohan shorts and separate underpants and have had none so impossible to tell until you try. I...
I’ve used Adidas supernova running shoes for my recent caminos having switched from Merrell boots. The same pair of Adidas covered the Primitivo and the Portuguese from Porto plus daily use at home. I replaced the insoles with sorbothane insoles and took a second pair with me. I alternated daily...
Hi Sue, my wife and I walked the Inglés last month. It’s a very gentle Camino, undulating but no hard or long ups and downs that we noticed, certainly nothing that I can remember that would warrant the term ‘steep’. I’m sure that your husband will be absolutely fine. It’s a lovely Camino.
Hi, just got back from walking the Inglés then to Fistera via Muxia. Don’t fret about COVID, fully vaccinated, you’re incredibly unlikely to become seriously ill even if you do pick up the virus and that in itself is extremely unlikely. Accommodation as always is likely to be your overriding...
Ah, should have mentioned that bars and restaurants all appear to be open. There’s typically 5km+ between them so carrying a small snack and half a litre of water is a good idea but there’s no danger of running out of energy. It’s a short Camino with no really serious ups and downs, nothing to...
Hi, it was a lovely Camino, weather was great etc. From conversations with others it seems that everyone has accommodation but all had booked in advance. My impression was that those that were open were very busy, though whether that was because of COVID restrictions or simply demand, I’m not...
Probably not the right thread to post to but we’ve just finished the Inglés today and everything appears to have been fully booked. Normally we’d book one or two days ahead at most but this time we booked some weeks ago but even then we had difficulty finding accommodation. If the Primitivo and...
You’ll be a little ahead of us. My wife and I are flying out to Madrid early on Tuesday. We’ll be in Burgos early Tuesday evening and on our way next morning to resume our interrupted 2020 Camino. Re feelings, we’re looking forward to leaving the UK for a while at least. We’re fully vaccinated...
Hi, my wife and I are flying out to Madrid on the 20th, have booked a train to Burgos in order to walk the Frances to Santiago but are seriously thinking of staying on the train to San Sebastián and walking the Norte instead. We’ve been concerned about the possible lack of accommodation. We do...
Booked flights from Heathrow to Madrid today. Arriving Burgos on 20th July to resume a Camino interrupted in 2020. Both of us are fully vaccinated and looking forward to three or four weeks of peace and tranquillity.
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