Specific Brierley Questions

[AngelM]

1. If I plan to walk in 2016 is there any point in buying an earlier years Brierly? If so should I wait for 2015 to get the nearest year, or just get the 2014 since I won't be walking the year of the Brierly anyway?

2. If I already know I am going to "make up my own phases" and probably just "wing it" through my walk, is there any point in buying the Brierly at all? I know there are other good guidebooks but I am still so new to this that I am in the researching phase. I plan to buy a "Pilgrimage Road to Santiago" and then maybe Brierly. Maybe something else? I have no idea.

3. I am debating between the Camino Frances and the English way. Is this a book that would have information and stories that would help me to think through that decision? Considerations I wokld like to have on hand for the decision would be
- what kind of trails to expect
- altitudes, steepness, etc.
- will the trails be busy, etc.
- what will the towns be like?
- will albergues be available, etc.
- where are churches and other sites of interest?

 

[allykat]

My two cents;

My party HAD the J.B. but it was held by my friend, who rarely walked with me. I had a book of Maps that also listed Albergues and cost in $$$ (the more $$$ the higher the cost) and their phone numbers at time of printing. This was EXCELLENT for me as it was "sorta" listed out in stages, but I could easily walk my fill and decide where to stay each night on the fly. It told me limited information about food and amenity availability, but since I had mostly planned my stages from home (using research I did online) I knew what to expect going into each city. I never went hungry, and only went without a bed purposefully.

If you really don't plan to use the J.B. but want to get a feel for the information, then might I suggest waiting until the 2015 comes out, and then getting the 2014? Or, buy the 2013 if you can find it, and if you can't see if your local bookstore has used copies. Or, see if a local library might have a copy!

Here's the thing however, I never used the J.B. and so I never found its info useful, instead, I looked to the CJS (Confraternity of Saint James) http://www.csj.org.uk/

They offer step by step info, and I used that to create my own sort of journaled game plan, and then when I was IN SPAIN, I asked my fellow pilgrims and the locals what they thought about this place or that, and I just let the wind and the Camino take me where it would. I never really felt out of the loop because others had the J.B. and allowed me to look at it from time to time, though I never read much in them.

In 2016 I plan to actually laminate my own little mini book. As I can get info for it updated until about a week before I leave. That's the most update info anyone could get besides talking to locals while you are there. And I plan to use CSJ and this form for a lot of that!

 

[Mark Lee]

I don't think using a Brierley guidebook that's a few years old would make much of a difference.
As far as your questions go:

- what kind of trails to expect......on the Frances a mix of everything, dirt to concrete
- altitudes, steepness, etc. .............the guidebook shows that in illustration
- will the trails be busy, etc. ...........guidebook can't answer that exactly or with precision, but does show historically peak months
- what will the towns be like?.............that's a subject of opinion...what do you like in a town?
- will albergues be available, etc. .............guidebook can't answer that
- where are churches and other sites of interest?............churches all up and down the Camino and the guidebooks do cover other points of interest

 

[AngelM]

I may not have been clear in my question.

My question to you all is if THIS is the right guide, as far as your experience, for me to buy to get myself a little bit of knowledge ahead of time as far as what to expect, in relation to the areas of interest I had listed...

Of course there will be a wide variety of trail over a section of earth approximately 500 miles long. What I need to know is what kind of trail to expect between town point a and b, or g and h. And since I haven't yet decided if I am going to take the French way or the English way that's a whole lot of points A to B to be asking about so it would be a lot easier to read a book than to come here and bore you all to death with a literal deluge of questions.

Also, If the guidebook doesn't tell me the albergues are, where will I look to find them?

I realize there are churches everywhere all over Europe, but are their locations or any information about them going to be listed in this (or any other better) guide?

 

[Anemone del Camino]

If the guidebook doesn't tell me, where will I look to find out where the albergues are?

Go free. This is the best way. While there is no doubt whatsoever that JB's books are well research, to what extent are they needed? If you have already decided to wing it: do so.

On the CF you will meet more people that you wish you will meet, and they can share their guides, tips or tell you where they are going, and if you like them why not tag along. Plus, other than in two or three places, there is an albergue every 5 or 10 km. When in doubt, ask the local bar. Plus, if you start in SJPP just get the 1 sheet with all albergue info plus the one with ups and downs. That really is all you need. It's all I had the first time around, and wish I would go back to that way of walking.

While I hate to say things that may put a dent in JB's revenues, but I know he does not do this for money, I think uber comercialised guides due to language (JB=Anglo) do not serve pilgrims well. Wing it, see what you are made up, face fears (and find out if they are warranted or not) - that is also what the Camino is about.

And enjoy every single step of it. THAT is the challenge, in my opinon.

 

[Mark Lee]

I may not have been clear in my question.

My question to you all is if THIS is the right guide, as far as your experience, for me to buy to get myself a little bit of knowledge ahead of time as far as what to expect, in relation to the areas of interest I had listed...

Of course there will be a wide variety of trail over a section of earth approximately 500 miles long. What I need to know is what kind of trail to expect between town point a and b, or g and h. And since I haven't yet decided if I am going to take the French way or the English way that's a whole lot of points A to B to be asking about so it would be a lot easier to read a book than to come here and bore you all to death with a literal deluge of questions.

Also, If the guidebook doesn't tell me the albergues are, where will I look to find them?

I realize there are churches everywhere all over Europe, but are their locations or any information about them going to be listed in this (or any other better) guide?

The Brierley guidebook will cover all you need to do the Camino Frances. The maps are good and show all the towns and cover albergues, pensiones and hotels along the way, and includes telephone numbers. The old dude did his homework with that guidebook. Yeah, some people complain that the maps are not accurate distance wise. Sure they may be off a few kilometers here and there, but so what. Who's counting. You're not orienteering and looking for caches.
I don't think there's a guide around that's going to describe the Camino trails, roads, etc in detail between towns. I've walked the Camino twice and I don't remember it myself.
Like I've said on this forum before, I did my first Camino with no planning, and didn't even look at a guidebook until I got to St. Jean. I did it by the seat of my pants and I had a great time. I enjoyed it more than my second Camino which I did with a little bit of planning.

 

[dgassa]

You know there are other guides, one that I intend to use is "A village to Village Guide to Hiking the Camino de Santiago". I think the maps are of a better quality the Brierley guide. Also it leaves out all spiritual guidelines which for me was not helpful.

 

[AngelM]

Thanks I will look at that one too!

 

[Icacos]

We didn't use anything other than Brierley's guide, so I don't know what the other guides are like. One thing I appreciated about Brierley's was that it set out clearly the alternative routes available, along with the pros and cons of each. Winging it is all well and good but I would have been pretty burned if I had found out after the fact that I had missed a particularly interesting or pleasant route. There were at least two times that I can recall walking alongside a river with, at times, lots of trees providing much needed shade when we could see off in the distance some poor souls trudging along the road / senda while cars and trucks whizzed by.

 

[dougfitz]

I have used the Brierley guide for the CF and Finisterre/Muxia, and @JohnnieWalker's CSJ guide for the CI. There are merits to both approaches, and while I wouldn't recommend one over the other, I would recommend you walk with a guidebook of some sort for the reasons @Icacos and others have described.

If it is going to be the Brierley, and you can find an older copy, use that for planning and get the latest edition closer to your departure. While much won't change, things nonetheless do, and it is useful to have as up-to-date a version as possible.

If you chose to do the CF, where were you thinking you would start? The answers to your questions could be quite different if you were only walking the last 100 km from Sarria, which appears to be the busiest section of all the different routes whatever the time of year. In contrast, the CI is positively quiet and calm. I found it a wonderful experience, but it was quite different to walking the CF from SJPP, even with an extra leg to walk around the headland from Covas to Ferrol.

 

[wayfarer]

Have a look at this online guide AngelM, its great for planning straight away, they have told me they will include phone numbers in future pdf downloads so you could have an offline guide on your phone/tablet. As for a paper guide I found the Michelin Guide to Santiago de Compostella suited me best as a daily planning guide, it is also small and light and can be carried in a cargo pocket, it also has excellent maps and shows distances betweens villages/towns. It has not been updated since 2012 but you can get a full list of all the albergues in the resources section here. Good luck with your planning.
http://santiago.forwalk.org/en/trail/

 

[tyrrek]

Brierley's guide is probably as good as any for planning and getting a sense of 'Camino logic'; i.e. how and why you might take one particular route or stay in one particular place over another. You may not have the same preferences as JB, but you may go through the same thought processes. Yes, get it for insight and planning in a wide sense, but try not to overplan and lose the spontaneity. For details of churches etc I imagine it's as good as any, although each guide may have a few unique insights. I think it's fair to say that JB's views are deliberately personal and subjective, and in some cases would differ from most of the human race, so take things with a pinch of salt. Once you've been 'Brierleyed' once you'll know what I mean.

The Ingles is probably as different from the Frances as any of the main routes inside Spain. There aren't really so many options and therefore fewer choices to be made. The relatively few pilgrims make it quite a different Camino experience altogether, although both are great in their own way. After a bit of reading up it will probably become clear quite quickly which suits you best.

P.s. Be slightly wary of the dates on these guides. I'm sure I walked with the 2012 edition of JB's Finisterre guide in autumn 2011.

 

[Deleted member 3000]

Take a guide. Brierley is a good one. He can put only so much information on a page, so ignore the stages he outlines; they have resulted more from editorial considerations than destination value. Brierley shows route and elevation change. He has enough information on accommodations to make decisions easy.

Look here for route and accommodation information on a variety of routes:

http://www.gronze.com/

 

[petitewalker]

You know there are other guides, one that I intend to use is "A village to Village Guide to Hiking the Camino de Santiago". I think the maps are of a better quality the Brierley guide. Also it leaves out all spiritual guidelines which for me was not helpful.

I also had this guidebook and I found it more usefull than JB's, especially the listings on lodging, and the maps.

 

[SYates]

My suggestion would be also: Buy an old, aka cheap edition, for a few dollar or less, just that you have a starting point and get a feeling for what lays ahead. Closer to departure get a new, uptodate version of the guide you want ultimately take with you. Buen Camino planning, SY

 

[Thornley]

Thanks I will look at that one too!

'

look up Mundicamino , routas Frances.
It shows you the sections, altitudes ,distances, lodgings and ratings and a description of each section.

 

[Kathy F.]

I had gotten other guidebooks but didn't feel they were as complete as the Brierly. There are two versions of the JB - the full version and the abridged with just the maps. I used the full Brierly and found it very useful. I did not use it for stages, but the information on trails, altitudes, landmarks, albergues, etc. was very valuable to me. I did not use the spiritual formation he includes. I decided to take the full version, with the spiritual writings and am glad I did. It gave me more complete information on the trails. Next time I may take my abridged version with just the maps, but it was good to have the additional historical and cultural information included in the fuller version. at least for the first time around.

 

[jmcarp]

You know there are other guides, one that I intend to use is "A village to Village Guide to Hiking the Camino de Santiago". I think the maps are of a better quality the Brierley guide. Also it leaves out all spiritual guidelines which for me was not helpful.

We took both the "Village to Village Guide" and the Brierley; I carried one and my wife carried the other. They complemented each other nicely, but if I were doing it again, I'd probably take the most up-to-date Brierley, and before leaving I'd take it to my local office supply/printing/binding shop and have them cut off the spine binding, take out all the non-essential pages, and re-bind it with a spiral binder. Granted, the Brierley maps are simplified and the distances between points are not graphically accurate, but it can be argued that this eliminates a great deal of fluff. In that regard, I'd probably also take the Pili Pala Press "Camino de Santiago Map," a small-spiral-bound, geographically accurate book of maps that's similar but slightly smaller and lighter than the Brierley abridged maps-only guide. In fact, if I were taking only one map/guidebook resource, it would probably be the Pili Pala. BTW, both the Pili Pala and Brierley map books continue all the way to Finisterre, for those that anticipate walking to the end of the world.

As for stages, just remember that they're all just "guides" and not "must-dos." Getting off-stage just means stopping wherever you feel like it, and continuing the next day to wherever you feel like at that point. You'll just be looking at two maps, not one. For those wishing to get off-stage, the information is there for the in-between villages and facilities in both the Brierley and Village to Village guides, and I'm pretty sure the same is true for the other non-English language guides.

And finally, for the original poster, I'll second SYates' recommendation to get an older copy of the Brierley guide just for initial planning and to see if you think the latest one will be helpful to you once you start your actual Camino.

 

[whariwharangi]

1. If I plan to walk in 2016 is there any point in buying an earlier years Brierly? If so should I wait for 2015 to get the nearest year, or just get the 2014 since I won't be walking the year of the Brierly anyway?

2. If I already know I am going to "make up my own phases" and probably just "wing it" through my walk, is there any point in buying the Brierly at all? I know there are other good guidebooks but I am still so new to this that I am in the researching phase. I plan to buy a "Pilgrimage Road to Santiago" and then maybe Brierly. Maybe something else? I have no idea.

3. I am debating between the Camino Frances and the English way. Is this a book that would have information and stories that would help me to think through that decision? Considerations I wokld like to have on hand for the decision would be
- what kind of trails to expect
- altitudes, steepness, etc.
- will the trails be busy, etc.
- what will the towns be like?
- will albergues be available, etc.
- where are churches and other sites of interest?

I would wait to get the latest edition as the information about albergues is constantly in flux.

The primary value is about the conditions you will encounter on the camino itself ... useful to read the night before so you can decide how far you want to go the next day. That would include information about surfaces, altitudes, steepness etc. I like knowing something of whats ahead and it was important to plan as I went late in the year when many albergues were closed for the season.

There is information on statistics to give some idea of how busy things will be at any given point in the year.

The guide is limited in its description of towns ... which are what they are. There is information about churches and other sites of religious interest. There is not much about other sites of interest, however, tourist offices and often the staff at the albergues will have tourist maps showing locations of the grocery store, bus routes, and the museum.

Brierley has divided the book into doable stages to assist in planning and to organize information. There is no obligation that you follow the stages ... you can take as long as you like on any section of the camino.

 

[Camembert]

The guide for the Camino Ingles is written by Johnny Walker, known on this this forum . You can download it and pay for it or order a printed version at Confraternity of Saint James in England. Info you can find on this forum.
In fact a guide is not necessairy because the CI is very well waymarked.
Where ever you are on the CF you allways find others who walk in the same direction so the guide is a luxury.

I have no experience about John Brierley on the camino Frances but on the caminho Portugues and there the guide worked well. Some people complain about the Brierley guide but we found it okay. Enough information to find our way and a place to sleep.

You like to compare the CF with the CI. You do not tell where you want to start.
There is a significant difference between the distances of the CF and the CI.

 

[Thornley]

I would wait to get the latest edition as the information about albergues is constantly in flux.

The primary value is about the conditions you will encounter on the camino itself ... useful to read the night before so you can decide how far you want to go the next day. That would include information about surfaces, altitudes, steepness etc. I like knowing something of whats ahead and it was important to plan as I went late in the year when many albergues were closed for the season.

There is information on statistics to give some idea of how busy things will be at any given point in the year.

The guide is limited in its description of towns ... which are what they are. There is information about churches and other sites of religious interest. There is not much about other sites of interest, however, tourist offices and often the staff at the albergues will have tourist maps showing locations of the grocery store, bus routes, and the museum.

Brierley has divided the book into doable stages to assist in planning and to organize information. There is no obligation that you follow the stages ... you can take as long as you like on any section of the camino.

It is very advisable to avoid the Brierley stages if walking in the June-August block unless you like running.
We use MMDD and find the albergues which have a small amount of beds in each room just before or after the big towns.
MMDD lists many more options than Brierley and we also use the tourist offices for the next 100km.
They have a very up to date leaflet available.
This allows us to explore and also enjoy the peace and quiet.
The crowds come in waves , when this occurs drop off.

 

[sjhannes]

1. If I plan to walk in 2016 is there any point in buying an earlier years Brierly? If so should I wait for 2015 to get the nearest year, or just get the 2014 since I won't be walking the year of the Brierly anyway?

2. If I already know I am going to "make up my own phases" and probably just "wing it" through my walk, is there any point in buying the Brierly at all? I know there are other good guidebooks but I am still so new to this that I am in the researching phase. I plan to buy a "Pilgrimage Road to Santiago" and then maybe Brierly. Maybe something else? I have no idea.

3. I am debating between the Camino Frances and the English way. Is this a book that would have information and stories that would help me to think through that decision? Considerations I wokld like to have on hand for the decision would be
- what kind of trails to expect
- altitudes, steepness, etc.
- will the trails be busy, etc.
- what will the towns be like?
- will albergues be available, etc.
- where are churches and other sites of interest?

The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago is a big book. I bought a kindle version and put it on my iPod. I used the iPod for email, camera and books. No music, no phone.