May is the most popular month - St Jean

[sillydoll]

Statistics from 2004 to 2007 on the Amis St Jacques website show that May has always been by far the most populous month in St Jean. (Only in the 2004 Holy Year were there more pilgrims in August than in May).
The graph on the website shows two high seasons. One from 23 April to late May with a very high peak from 7th to 13th May (1668 pilgrims in 7 days, an average of 238 pilgrims per day!!)
The 2nd high season is from August to mid-September. This is less clear as there was a drop in numbers in the 2nd half of August.
As in previous years, in 2007 there was a pronounced decline in June-July with 'only' about 900 pilgrims per week starting from St Jean during these months.
This table highlights the popularity of May and August with significant increases of 127% and 124% respectively from 2006/2007

2004 2005 2006 2007
April 2325 2007 2427 3324 134%
May 3946 4651 4749 6025 127%
June 2731 3382 3791 4342 115%
July 3288 3945 3850 4366 113%
Aug 4001 4240 4536 5605 124%
Sept 3241 3569 3991 4820 121%
Oct 1232 1183 1477 1570 106%

http://www.aucoeurduchemin.org/spip/IMG/PDF/stati.pdf

PS: I can't get the tabulation to work but I'm sure you can work it out, 6025 pilgrims started from or registered at St Jean in May last year.

 

[brendan nolan]

Hi Sil,
Thanks for posting the stats re pilgrims in May. In practical terms it means full refugios. When working as hospitalero in Rabanal in last 2 weeks of May last year there were 3 nights when every bed in the village was taken and pilgrims were on mattresses on the floors of at least 2 refugios - each one taking 30% more than they had beds.
The figure of 900 pilgrims per week for June/July is interesting because during the busy period in May we heard later that the night before the 'flood' hit Rabanal there had been 400 pilgrims in Astorga heading our way - 400 leaving Astorga on one day! :roll:
Regards

Brendan