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Is Norte route for me

Allison Polland

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Time of past OR future Camino
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I am starting my camino walk on 1st July, but I have been advised to take the Norte route because it's cooler. I can comfortably walk 30 km. my concern is the hills some books say it's very hilly can you go the coastline? I have 30 day for walking.
Many thanks Allison
 
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Hi Alison Its hilly for about the 1st 120 km, part of the reason is the way the coast is shaped and when you head inland you have to climb into the hilly interior. After Gernika it settles down into a undalating rhythm for the rest of the way to Santiago, with a few exceptions. The 1st few days are not that hard IMO but that could be because I train on the South West Coast path and it has constant ups and downs. To me the 1st 3 days on the Frances are harder than the equivalent on the Norte.
Most albergues will be open from 1st July, if you have a good guide ( cicerone) you can plan a route which gets you to Santiago in less than 30 days, eroski and gronze have both good on line guides with up to date albergue lists. There is a lot of asphalt walking, so your shoes or mids need some kind of good shock absorption. The route itself does not constantly stick to the coast, you kind of zig zag backwards and forwards to it until the route gets into Galicia and starts then heading inland to Santiago. There is options in places to take non Camino coastal paths, you will usually see markings for them or hear about them from other pilgrims, Conrad Stein books( German) have bought out an English e-book for the Norte, this has lots of coastal options in it. It will be busy in July but you should be ok.

Good Luck and Buen Camino
 
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Hi @Allison Polland . We are currently on the Norte and loving it. It is beautiful. But there is no way we could do it in 30 days. Using the Cicerone guide we are finding that most days we only do a half to 2/3 of the kilometres suggested. To my mind the Norte is more challenging than the Frances, partly because the first two to three weeks involve lots of ups and downs and thereafter much road walking which is hard on the feet.
 
The focus is on reducing the risk of failure through being well prepared. 2nd ed.
The first couple of weeks will be quite hilly. You'll be in the heart of the basque region which is awesome, and the food will be best of any camino route, but it is going to be up and down.
 
I am starting my camino walk on 1st July, but I have been advised to take the Norte route because it's cooler. I can comfortably walk 30 km. my concern is the hills some books say it's very hilly can you go the coastline? I have 30 day for walking.
Many thanks Allison

Allison:

You can walk this route in 30 days. The walk is mostly along the coastline though there are several alternates routes. I Suggest you look at the Eroski and Gronze websites. Day in and day out the Norte is tougher than the Frances. There are no 1900 meters climbs like the first day from SJPdP but there are plenty of 500 meters climbs. I would suggest you start slowly in the beginning and save the longer days for the last third which has much gentler terrain.

Ultreya,
Joe
 
The focus is on reducing the risk of failure through being well prepared. 2nd ed.

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