jennysa
Active Member
- Time of past OR future Camino
- CF 2011,2012 2013,2014, 2015 Aragones 2012, 2017 2018 Via Francigena 2016,2017 Primitivo 2018,2019
I am now on my 8th day of the Camino, having started at SJPDP and arrived at St Dom de la Calz at lunch time today. I have followed the forum closely and picked up many useful tips, but until you are actually putting one foot in front of the other, you really have no idea of what to expect.
first of all, after all the comments, I was dreading the Napoleon route from SJPDP, but in actual fact it was fine and I coped well. The disappointing part was we had the hard slog but not the rewards as we had heavy mist all the way up. Arriving at Roncesvalles was quite a shock to see the size of the aubergue, but nevertheless, it was well run with good facilities. The biggest shock the next day was to see how many pilgrims there were on the road, and the pressure on to try to find somewhere to spend the next night. There were literally hundreds on the road and always bunched up so hard to overtake. We arrived at Zubiri so early, but were scared to go on to Larrassoana with its limited accommodation and the large number of pilgrims on the road. We subsequently heard how many were turned away. I thought that the end of April and beginning of May would be a good time to go, but now realise that it really is too busy now and I should have started in early April instead.
The other shock is to realise that it is difficult to saunter along because there is always the stress of whether you will get in too late to find any accommodation, so unless you join the 5 o´,clock brigade that gets up in the dark and wakes everyone up as they zip and unzip their bags, shine torches in your faces etc., you will struggle with accommodation as there are so many pilgrims and they all arrive by noon or lunch time, quickly filling up the aubergues. How pleasant it would be to amble along, taking one´s time and arrive late afternoon, but you would not find anything available then. (Our aubergue in Zubiri charged 15 euros, which included breakfast, but then only served breakfast at 8.00 am, which was far too late). However, the places I have stayed in have been superb - last night at Ventosa was the best. Lovely to be woken up by Gregorian Chants at 6.00 am. they had the right idea of banning pilgrims from the kitchen before 6.00 am and not opening up until then. The hospitelero at the sports centre outside Estella, Peter, was marvellous and in fact it was a very nice place to stay. Today I am in St Dom del Calz and the staff here have also been superb, even carrying my backup up to the room for me when they could see how tired I was.
I was expecting rain and cold weather but apart from the day of mist on the Pyrenees, the weather has been absolutely superbly warm and sunny. In fact yesterday I saw so many pilgrims walking around with very red sunburned legs, arms and faces. Long may it last.
Fortunately, after 7 days the aches and pains gradually disappear. My hips ached each night for the first week and if I stopped walking, all my muscles seemed to seize up. Now I am in my stride and already my trousers are beginning to hang on me!
first of all, after all the comments, I was dreading the Napoleon route from SJPDP, but in actual fact it was fine and I coped well. The disappointing part was we had the hard slog but not the rewards as we had heavy mist all the way up. Arriving at Roncesvalles was quite a shock to see the size of the aubergue, but nevertheless, it was well run with good facilities. The biggest shock the next day was to see how many pilgrims there were on the road, and the pressure on to try to find somewhere to spend the next night. There were literally hundreds on the road and always bunched up so hard to overtake. We arrived at Zubiri so early, but were scared to go on to Larrassoana with its limited accommodation and the large number of pilgrims on the road. We subsequently heard how many were turned away. I thought that the end of April and beginning of May would be a good time to go, but now realise that it really is too busy now and I should have started in early April instead.
The other shock is to realise that it is difficult to saunter along because there is always the stress of whether you will get in too late to find any accommodation, so unless you join the 5 o´,clock brigade that gets up in the dark and wakes everyone up as they zip and unzip their bags, shine torches in your faces etc., you will struggle with accommodation as there are so many pilgrims and they all arrive by noon or lunch time, quickly filling up the aubergues. How pleasant it would be to amble along, taking one´s time and arrive late afternoon, but you would not find anything available then. (Our aubergue in Zubiri charged 15 euros, which included breakfast, but then only served breakfast at 8.00 am, which was far too late). However, the places I have stayed in have been superb - last night at Ventosa was the best. Lovely to be woken up by Gregorian Chants at 6.00 am. they had the right idea of banning pilgrims from the kitchen before 6.00 am and not opening up until then. The hospitelero at the sports centre outside Estella, Peter, was marvellous and in fact it was a very nice place to stay. Today I am in St Dom del Calz and the staff here have also been superb, even carrying my backup up to the room for me when they could see how tired I was.
I was expecting rain and cold weather but apart from the day of mist on the Pyrenees, the weather has been absolutely superbly warm and sunny. In fact yesterday I saw so many pilgrims walking around with very red sunburned legs, arms and faces. Long may it last.
Fortunately, after 7 days the aches and pains gradually disappear. My hips ached each night for the first week and if I stopped walking, all my muscles seemed to seize up. Now I am in my stride and already my trousers are beginning to hang on me!
