For 2024 Pilgrims: €50,- donation = 1 year with no ads on the forum + 90% off any 2024 Guide. More here. (Discount code sent to you by Private Message after your donation)
Bravo!
I think a big difference between a day hike or weekend hike and a longer pilgrimage is that those rougher days are part of the experience on a pilgrimage, and aren't always so "rough." For a day hike, if it's raining or too hot or even if I simply want to sleep in, I just stay home.
@JTD - The albergue in the church at Nájera was the only other place I recall that had us go around & give our reasons for walking. I hate forced sharing too, though I usually just fake it & say something innocuous.
Edit: Payafac was right; I was thinking about Grañon. I liked staying there...
I need to amend my response: apparently four months before a Camino is when I start asking myself “why am I doing this?”
Of course this will pass & of course I am walking again this spring, and I’m half laughing at myself for having the same doubts and jitters as the first time.
In another thread on "when did you feel most like quitting" a number of people have mentioned the long climb to O Cebreiro as one of their more discouraging days. Which is a shame, because it is a lovely walk ... if you do it at the start and not the end of your day.
My advice, for those...
I'd differentiate between "having to stop" (due to a family crisis, or an injury) versus "wanting to quit."
Perhaps those first few days after Pamplona also? I felt like there were a few people I met who dropped out before and after Pamplona after deciding the camino wasn't for them. I didn't...
Actually quitting? Not once, even for a moment. Leaving the crowds for a quieter Camino? There was a stretch early on the Francès where I was tempted to take a bus north & continue on the Norte. I’m glad I didn’t.
...special about starting in Lucca ... and yet that's where my gut tells me I need to start.
And in 2024 a friend wants to "do" the Caminho Português* from Porto. I don't have any desire to either walk the full CP from Lisbon, or to only walk the last 100 km from Tui. Starting in Porto feels...
Those numbers are amazing.
One thing to consider - starting later in September puts a pilgrim on track to arrive in Santiago in time for All Souls Day.
I arrived late, and wish I had had time to explore the buildings and attend mass. I did enjoy being part of the large group & meeting so many people, even though overall I strongly prefer the smaller, more intimate albergues. It's also an iconic stop, so that's a plus. I'd place it under "a...
I needed google a couple times to help me find my way out of town. I think Ponferrada was the worst (though I might be confusing it with another city). I simply could not find the shells, and I slowly accumulated other lost pilgrims. We knew generally which direction we were supposed to be...
And also to escape punishment for crimes, to take on a lover in a foreign land, to make money ... the medieval accounts contain plenty of stories of "bad" pilgrims!
From Pícaros y picaresca en el camino de Santiago, Pablo Arribas Briones (1993), (I found this in an article by Geroge Greenia...
I'm with all those others who wrote that it was the length of time that was important to me, rather than doing a "full" camino.
Ditto. I actually withdrew an invite to have friends join me on my next walk; I realized I was doing a lot of planning around what I thought their needs would be...
Oh but I had one morning that was literally like that, and this was at the end of October! I was in the middle of a wave of many hundreds coming out of O Pedrouzo. It was a solid line of people for most of the morning. By contrast, the previous two nights there were four of us in one...
I agree with those who recommend spending the night in Samos, stopping for lunch in Sarria, and spending the next night further along. There will be plenty of pilgrims to socialize with, but you won’t be part of that massive wave out of Sarria.
I took the alternate route via Samos, which put me completely out of synch with everyone. There were nights where there were only six pilgrims in the entire town, and I met them all. I didn’t realize until the last day that there were many, many hundreds of pilgrims in each town on the...
This site is run by Ivar at in Santiago de Compostela.
This site participates in the Amazon Affiliate program, designed to provide a means for Ivar to earn fees by linking to Amazon