• For 2024 Pilgrims: €50,- donation = 1 year with no ads on the forum + 90% off any 2024 Guide. More here.
    (Discount code sent to you by Private Message after your donation)
This is a mobile optimized page that loads fast, if you want to load the real page, click this text.

Shirley Maclaine - The Camino - Swimming place

*update

I finished, or rather skimmed through the last chapters of the book yesterday (although I haven't read the epilogue yet), the whole account of the last 24 or so hours into Santiago was difficult to follow and just seemed so crazy - maybe because she was been chased by hundreds of journalists, but I just couldn't read it. I really don't know what is true in the book and what isn't. It's a shame as for me the book started so well and I thought I was really going to enjoy it.

However, one thing that was discussed further up was the foot-bathing at the end in Santiago which someone said was in the pilgrims office. But in the book it seems this was done by the priest in the Cathedral? But then perhaps back then they were both one and the same?
 
Camino Way markers in Bronze
The one from Galicia (the round) and the one from Castilla & Leon. Individually numbered and made by the same people that make the ones you see on your walk.
I do not know what the situation was in 1994. In 1990 Compostelas were issued in an office in the cathedral itself though a temporary office was sometimes set up elsewhere for exceptionally busy periods like July 25th. Usually issued by one of the cathedral priests with special responsibility for pilgrims. As I said before in this thread I think it is quite plausible that foot-washing was performed as a one-off for the famous visitor even though it was not routinely done at the time.

Edit: Just checked with Johnnie Walker who managed the old pilgrim office in Rua do Vilar for some time. He tells me the pilgrim office there was opened for the 1993 Holy Year. So normally that is where Compostelas would have been issued. But it seems very unsafe to assume that anything about Ms MacLaine's journey went strictly by the book at the time.
 
Last edited:
I think that the book has to be seen as fiction based on facts (and I don't mean the metaphysical / new agey or whatever one wants to call it part).

@Bradypus, since you are one of the Camino pioneers - you walked for the first time in 1990, didn't you? Something I always wanted to ask: Were the "refugios" and similar shelters free of charge in those days? Were pilgrims expected to make a donation or was it customary? And the soups and bread - garlic or other, did you pay for it? BTW, I am just curious - not interested in a discussion about morals and ethics in the 1980s and 1990s and comparisons to today.

And also out of sheer curiosity - could you say how much you spent in 1990?
 
Best lightweight Camino guides
Ideal pocket guides for during & after your Camino. Each weighs only 1.4 oz (40g)!
Kathar1na said:
Something I always wanted to ask: Were the "refugios" and similar shelters free of charge in those days? Were pilgrims expected to make a donation or was it customary? And the soups and bread - garlic or other, did you pay for it?
Click to expand...
Some charged a set fee. 300 pesetas was about normal. Most were donativo. A few like the Burgos municipal even refused donations though Burgos did charge a very small amount for food if required. Very few refugios offered any food. They were usually small and not staffed by hospitaleros. The only albergue in Astorga had 4 beds. Often you just picked up a key from a bar or the local police. Only two I noted at the time provided food - Burgos and San Juan de Ortega. San Juan de Ortega was a notable exception and it was donativo. I didn't have the chance to try the famous garlic soup as I was violently ill that day but the priest did give me a dangerously large dose of neat gin to settle my stomach. Which worked miraculously!

PS: At the time a typical menu del dia would have been in the 600 to 800 peseta range. So accommodation costs were typically lower in comparison than today. But so was the standard of accommodation which was often very basic.
 
Last edited:
Bradypus said:
Some charged a set fee. 300 pesetas was about normal. Most were donativo. A few like the Burgos municipal even refused donations though Burgos did charge a very small amount for food if required. Very few refugios offered any food.
Click to expand...
Thanks! So that was about $2 in June 1994. Just curious, as I said.
 
Ooh, I forgot to mention this. It may be nice to see. We Kindle readers see only text but those who bought a print edition, depending on the country where it was marketed, got to see photos of what looks like the credencial that she received in SJPP from Mme Debril (or De Brill as it is misspelt in the book).

From purely a historical point of view: There is a sello from Molinaseca among the stamps, dated 27/6/94, preceded by stamps from Gaucelmo in Rabanal and Manjarin and followed by Ponferrada - the massive sello of the AACS Friends of the Camino association who attended to several refugios in the region at the time including a refugio in Ponferrada (I checked lossellosdelcamino.com).

 
Altus ANDES 400 H30 sleeping bag
Down bag (90/10 duvet) of 700 fills with 180 g (6.34 ounces) of filling. Mummy-shaped structure, ideal when you are looking for lightness with great heating performance.

€149,-
@Kathar1na I recently changed my Facebook avatar to an image nicked from the sello of the famous Bar Chonina in Rabanal. The year before Refugio Gaucelmo opened. At that time people occasionally slept on the floor of the bar or in the abandoned school room in Rabanal. I had lunch there and spent the night in the equally abandoned school room in El Acebo. Which has been much improved since I first saw it!


 
Right? It wasn't "hip" then. And I totally get that whatever she says about it after the fact is weird and doesn't make a lot of sense. I tried explaining to my partner what I went through when I did it, and he looked at me sideways. There is no great way to describe what is both an intense personal, yet universal, experience.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest Camino Photo

Most read last week in this forum

Similar threads

S
Wild swimming
Replies
25
Views
4K
Camino Chrissy
  • Tags food & drink
    • Best / Recommended Pizza places on the camino?
    Replies
    54
    Views
    4K
    AussieSunnygirl
    Is it for the wild places of the heart
    Replies
    5
    Views
    924
    woody66
    Menu
    Log in
    Register