Questions from a Newbie

[ElCaminanteChileno]

Hi everybody,

Longtime lurker, first time poster. My girlfriend and I are going to be starting el Camino Frances mid-June from St. Jean and we are very excited about this. However, we have been reading all about the busy albergues and we are getting a bit worried, so I had a couple questions.

1) I have read about lots of people booking days in advanced. However I thought most of the albergues (at least the municipal and parish ones) were first come first serve. Has this changed? These are the ones we were hoping on staying since they are more in our price range.

2) What happens if you get to a town that is all “completo” and you don’t have time to get to another town? Where do you sleep?
I would be perfectly fine with sleeping on a sleeping pad on a church porch but would this be allowed?

3) I read the post that suggested to walk other caminos and it got me interested in the Northern route. I know next to nothing about that route and when I have time I will research it more but how does it compare to the Frances? Is it as well demarcated? Does it have the same support system in terms of cheap albergues and menu peregrino, etc?

Thanks!!

 

[Anamya]

Welcome, bienvenido, fellow pilgrim!

I hope you will find lots of useful info in this forum. Regarding your questions:

1) You can book in advance in private albergues or inn/hotels. In the public ones, it works as you said: first come, first serve.

2) If all albergues are "completos", you can go to a normal hotel. If there's none in the city and walking more is not an option, many people take a taxi to the next city. On the next day you can go on from there, or take a taxi back to where you stopped on the day before.

3) With that one I can't help - I've done Frances last year and I'm planning Portuguese for next. But many people here will help you!

Buen Camino!

 

[HeidiL]

The Norte has less infrastructure, in that you usually won't find an albergue every 7 km or so, which you will on very long stretches of the Frances. But if you're planning to walk 25 km a day or so, without the option of stopping very early, it's doable. Plenty of cheap albergues and pilgrim menus, just fewer choices regarding where to stop.

Unfortunately, everyone I know who has walked it LOVES the Norte, while warning me that some stretches are very, very hilly - which means that I'm absolutely SICK with longing to walk it, but know I can't realistically do it before I've had my right knee joint switched out, in 5-7 years or so.