a quick question from a first timer

[Sindre Sandvik]

Hi, I am about to start my first Camino (on monday)
I have already gotten a Pilgrims passport and filled it out. My question is this;

Is it then enough just to have it stamped at the hotel I'll be staying at in SJPP or do I need to register at the Pilgrims office to "certify" that I started my camino there ?

All the best

-S

 

[Bradypus]

There is no need to register in St Jean. If your concern is about proof for the Compostela certificate the evidence you need is for the final 100 km only.

 

[scruffy1]

In the future, your Pilgrim's Passport, Credencial, will serve as an instant reference for where you were and will remind you of what you did and when. It is much better than say a photo album, will assist you should you decide to write an after the fact blog, and I would recommend you take two-from, starting from St. Jean you will need them! By all means stamp it at the Pilgrims Office at St. Jean-a special pilgrims experience all in itself. Have your Credencial stamped in any hamlet, town or village you pass through which you want to remember. Stamp it at any restaurant or café/bar where you enjoyed the company of other pilgrims or ate a memorable meal - even the Cowboy bar has a stamp! It is a fine memory and one can even have it framed for preservation or display-as you will see in countless bars, restaurants, and albergues along the Camino. Don't be shy and certainly don't think of it as only a bureaucratic necessity required to receive the Compostela, it is much much more than that!

 

[wayfarer]

Welcome Sindre, your hotel stamp will suffice but it is nice if you have the time to spare to walk to the pilgrims office and get the first stamp there, also by registering you will be part of the Camino statistics for this year. Have a great Camino.
Buen Camino.

 

[MichaelSG]

You don't have to register at the Pilgrim's Office but it is a great place to begin your walk if you are able to. They will provide information on albergues, weather, recent developments on the way, etc. The volunteers there are a fountain of information and lovely people to see you off.

 

[Sindre Sandvik]

Thanks for your replies, I will register then just to get to be part of the statistics I had planned to get it stamped all the way... and as it happens I have two passports as some of those who were going with me dropped out...

All the best.
-S

 

[Peter Fransiscus]

Hi, I am about to start my first Camino (on monday)
I have already gotten a Pilgrims passport and filled it out. My question is this;

Is it then enough just to have it stamped at the hotel I'll be staying at in SJPP or do I need to register at the Pilgrims office to "certify" that I started my camino there ?

All the best

-S

Hello , everything is already stated . I wish you well and a Buen Camino , Peter .

 

[nidarosa]

Hei, Sindre! It's great that you have two passports because if you are walking all the way to Santiago the first one will be full around Rabanal ... You don't have to limit the stamps to places you have stayed either, I love looking at mine and seeing stamps from restaurants where I had a particularly good meal, met up with people I thought I had lost etc. Use it to make a beautiful and very personal reminder of your journey! Buen camino!

 

[Mike Savage]

Buen Camino!

 

[SeaHorse]

But on the other hand stamps are not Pokemons, you don't have to catch them all. Stamp a day before Sarria, 2 stamps a day after Sarria, thats all you need.

 

[MartinZ]

What's up with the 2 stamps thing ??? That's a hard to kill myth...
You REALLY don't need that.

When you go to get your Compostela it's a matter if they believe you to be a pilgrim or just a crazy person that drove the last 100km by car that decides if you get one.

(Unlike when you walk from Fisterra to Muxia and try to also get a certificate there, then you HAVE to get the right stamps)

 

[SeaHorse]

That myth is clearly printed in pilgrim's passport.

 

[MartinZ]

Not in mine that i got each time at the pilgrims office in SJPP.
I can scan in my three Credencials and Compostellas if you like. Never had more then one stamp a day between Sarria en Santiago.

Yes, if you walk just the last 100 or 200km then you probably will need more stamps before they believe you're a pilgrim and not a tourist just trying to get a Compostella.

Need picture proof?

 

[dougfitz]

The pilgrims office website (here) is quite clear about the requirement (to collect two sellos a day).

I think it would be foolhardy to ignore the requirement, particularly on the CF. I know that there will be many members who might have only collected one sello a day in the last 100km, but that doesn't make it good advice to recommend that to others.

 

[MartinZ]

Like I said.... hard to kill.
Isn't this a forum with actual experienced pilgrims? We just quote simplified guidelines here?

On my first camino CF i didn't know anything about the 2-stamp-rule until I got to Santiago.
A bit nervous I went to the pilgrims office to get my Compostella and just pretended everything was fine, hoping they wouldn't notice my "just-one-stamp".
Everything was fine, no problem.

I asked the guy behind the counter what the deal is about the two-stamp-rule I had been hearing about so much and he explained to me that before they can give out a Compostella they just have to be pretty sure that you actually have walked at least the last 100km. He told me that if you have plenty of stamps in your passport that make sense, if you have like stamps from places were there are no buses, if you look scruffy and he sees you can hardly stand on your legs... It was not a black and white thing, he has to be convinced you did the walking before he gives out a Compostella. If you have two stamps a day for the last 100km he MUST give you a Compostella even if it annoyed him if he was convinced that it was just some guy coming to get a paper. That 'must reason' is, most probably, why it apparently is printed in some passports, and why it's on the website.

My second CF, my third CF.... no problem, and not just me but my whole pilgrim-family each time. Call it actual experience, call it being well informed, or call me a liar.

so... if someone does the whole CF, or a large part of it, (has plenty of stamps etc) I can't put it differently then "you don't need two stamps a day".
No need to wait for a bar to open just to get your second stamp or whatever.

 

[dougfitz]

so... if someone does the whole CF, or a large part of it, (has plenty of stamps etc) I can't put it differently then "you don't need two stamps a day".
No need to wait for a bar to open just to get your second stamp or whatever.

Put simply, if you have two stamps a day, you will get the compostella. If not, you rely on the individual in the pilgrim office making an assessment of your bona fides, with the attendant risk they will deny it to you.

I know that I got the compostella without two stamps a day on the CF after Sarria, having walked from SJPP, and on the CI when I walked on Palm Sunday and nothing was open. But this is one of those things where it would only take one person to tell me that they didn't get the compostela because they didn't have two stamps a day at the end for me to be absolutely mortified if I had been responsible for advising them just to get one. It's just not sound advice to give.

Besides, on the CF, its not as if it is a huge impost to walk into a bar, hotel or the like and ask if they have a sello. Its not like you will finish your day's walking before these places open.

 

[MartinZ]

Put simply, if you have two stamps a day, you will get the compostella. If not, you rely on the individual in the pilgrim office making an assessment of your bona fides, with the attendant risk they will deny it to you.

Yes I totally agree, that's my first post in this thread.

Do get 'two-stamps-a-day' just to be sure. But not telling the whole deal (as in my previous posts in this thread), is not giving full advice.
It is not necessary, you don't have to wait half an hour in cue at the very busy bars that last 100km, or go out of your way in any means just to get that second stamp.
I wouldn't have said that if Sindre Sandvik started in Sarria.
Nuff said,

 

[Jellycat]

Don't worry about the 2 stamps thing, if you're a bona fide pilgrim and have walked a fait chunk of the camino they won;t even look at your passport that closely. They will now instinctively. I don;t know anyone who's had to prove that in Santiago or had any issues and I've completed the CF twice now (both times forgetting the '2 stamps rule'). One of my dear friends I met on my most recent camino lost his passport after Sarria after 3 weeks of collecting his stamps. He was devastated but turned it into a positive by getting the diary he had kept from the start stamped instead, more as a record, assuming he wouldn't get his compostella. Not only was it not an issue at the pilgrim office in Santiago but it was the basis of a great conversation between the pilgrim and the 'official' which resulted in exchanging emails, photos and respect for his documented record of his journey. And a compostella of course. These people know a pilgrim when they see one. They're not there to catch you out :O)

 

[MichaelSG]

But on the other hand stamps are not Pokemons, you don't have to catch them all. Stamp a day before Sarria, 2 stamps a day after Sarria, thats all you need.

If, by chance, the Pilgrim Office volunteer does get all official on you and says that you didn't qualify for compostela because you didn't have two stamps per day over the last 100km as stated on the credencial, website and wall of the SJPdP Pilgrim's office, don't worry. Just tell them that Martin and Jellycat said it was okay. That should change their attitude.

(BTW, I KNOW that many (most?) pilgrims - including myself twice - who walk the whole route from SJPdP or Lisbon, etc. get their compostela even without the two per day over the last 100km. Telling new pilgrims that it isn't needed though pushes the blame for that one pilgrim who is refused a compostela from them on to you. I would not want that on me.)

 

[C clearly]

The office that issues the compostela (http://peregrinossantiago.es/eng/pilgrimage/the-credencial/) says that "pilgrims should obtain at least two sellos per day. You must ensure that you do this at least in the last 100 kms from the Cathedral of Santiago if you are walking or on horseback and 200 kms if you are travelling by bicycle."

It is a standard of evidence requested of those who claim to have walked the last 100 km. Clearly the office has some flexibility in judging the evidence provided by the pilgrim to support their application for a compostela. I would expect the office volunteers to be reasonable, but you never know if some other "pilgrim" has just demanded a compostela with very dubious evidence and everyone is watching to see what happens when you walk up!

Make life easier for yourself and the volunteers by trying to get the 2 stamps/day after Sarria.

 

[SeaHorse]

Make life easier for yourself and the volunteers by trying to get the 2 stamps/day after Sarria.

Plus that is not that difficult as some actual and experienced try to scare the beginners: you get 1 stamp where you stay overnight and 1 (or more) where you eat/drink/use wc/attend a mas (sorry to put the last 2 in a row, but thats life). Stamps lay around unsupervised, go and use, only on a chain so they don't walk along with anybody.