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Good question. I walked in April. In my experience, most of the time the water is hot. My advice is to shower early ie. soon after you arrive at an albergue. I didn’t always follow my own advice and had quite a few luke warm showers. My own fault and nothing to complain about. I did have a couple of really cold showers but my BEST advice if this happens is to try another shower especially if there is more than one bathroom. Sometimes you can get lucky and the other shower will be connected to a different hot water system. Even a cold shower isn’t that bad. Either that or go without. I’ve done both.
So I guess the moral of this story is keep your showers short because often there is a limited amount of hot water and other pilgrims who need it too.
Difficult to say if all albergues will always have enough hot water for showering. So many factors in determining that.
More important is one's use of an albergue shower. I mean that in the sense of courtesy. Keep the shower short and use the rinse, shut off, soap and then rinse again method in lieu of keeping the water running the entire time in the shower.
Thanks for the adviceMost of the albergue's or hostal's hot water are from the hot water tank heated via electric. Needless to say, they are nice and hot for around 2+ showers consecutively. I learn the hard way when I was the 3rd of 4th to take the showers and the water got cold within a minute. After learning this lesson I always check to see who had just taken a shower. If there was more than 2 then I just wait (around 15 minutes or should be alright).
That is also the reason why many in the forum recommended taking the shower early as the chance of many people taking them in the evenings are very high, hence more chance to encounter cold water.
... I know that Spain heats water from solar systems and if the day is cloudy or its raining there is no hot water to shower , unless it is gas heated
Anyone familiar with this?
Can totally understand why you would think that. You will see lots and lots of small, self-contained, solar hot water heaters on house roof tops along the way. They looked so nifty I wished I could take one home with me. Good simple technology. I don’t know why we don’t have something like that in Australia. Our solar hot water heaters are not simple and usually very big and cost a lot of money.Well I live in Cyprus and from my experience from Italy and Spain I just assumed that the system is all the same, just a mediterranean thing, well I was wrong
Thanks for the advice
I'm walking in April
The municipal albergue in O Cebreiro is one of only two albergues that I have vowed not to stay in again.Only cold shower I had during two April Caminos was in Cebreiro...in the freezing cold...during a hellacious rainstorm!. As we trudged up that hill to the municipal albuergue, we kept saying, “this is bad, but a hot shower will be our reward” until we arrived and discovered otherwise.
Than again, the showers lacked doors and the building lacked heat, so a VERY quick splash and dash worked out just fine.
One November, I thought I was lucky to get a bed next to the wall heater. That got SO hot that I was sweating, even uncovered, and I was worried about my sleeping bag touching the radiator. I had to get up and sit in a chair in the hallway. What an awful night! Maybe I should have taken a nice cold shower!The municipal albergue in O Cebreiro is one of only two albergues that I have vowed not to stay in again
I wonder if there will be hot water available at all times.
Hear ye, hear ye!The municipal albergue in O Cebreiro is one of only two albergues that I have vowed not to stay in again.
If the overall sense of the place and hospitaleros are warm and friendly you barely remember whether the shower was hot or cold.The best place I've ever stayed was San Anton and it only had cold water.
Yes, plus I don't feel the world will end if I go one day without a shower. I can always heat water and wash up.If the overall sense of the place and hospitaleros are warm and friendly you barely remember whether the shower was hot or cold.
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