notion900 said:
I don't think you ever really need a tent, but if going in July and August a thermarest mat or similar would be a good insurance in case you have to sleep on the floor.
I found it interesting to reflect on this whole question of tents after finishing my marathon walk from Worcester to Finisterre recently, as I started with a tent (and particularly needed it in France, due to shortage of affordable pilgrim accommodation) but posted it back to Barbara Reed, who had lent it to me, when I arrived in SJPP. That had been the plan all along, and I cannot see how a tent can be of any possible value on the
Camino Frances.
There were one or two occasions, when I was in the race for the albergues in July, when I wavered and thought, "Maybe I should have kept the tent?" But the immediate following thought was always a question of
where would one camp? There aren't many places on the route that you can legally camp and the Spanish are not to keen on people camping in unofficial places: you are likely to get a visit from the Policia Municipal if too close to an urban setting or the Guardia Civil in the countryside. I saw a German fellow camping in the
huerta at the CSJ refuge in Rabanal, but even then we had two beds spare, so it was pointless. He was carrying 25 kilos on his back, so clearly he wasn't taking a particularly well-considered approach to the practicalities anyway!
However, I will say this: there are nearly always rough and ready shelters to be found, all along the
Camino Frances. On top of - or under - concrete picnic tables (there's a huge nine-foot long picnic table in the corner of a wood on the way out of Ponferrada!); bus shelters; barns; ruined buildings; in church porches; under bridges; and - if you have the nerves for it - in the corner of some country cemetery. As long as you arrive at dusk, and get up early enough to be gone before anyone knows you were ever there, the traditional haunts of wayfarers are the places to seek out when the albergues are full.
In this photo, I am about to spend the night in a barn near to Portomarin, sleeping on a bed of concrete bricks. As I wrote in my blog: "Sometimes you can be pleasantly surprised when something quite unsuitable looking turns out to be very comfortable. I was not surprised: it was indeed quite uncomfortable."
Gareth
