Walking into and out of countries, and even regions within regions, I have become so much more aware of how not only each route but each mile of the route has it's own unique 'terroir'. Though one meets with kindness and grace wherever one walks the greatest act of individual generosity I've experienced to date has been in Germany. It's true that moments of personal reflection and prayer do seem to rise and flow with much more ease on solitary, or at least less travelled, paths. But those route choices also come with the need to be far more alert and route aware-so one is alway 'on point' (I have learned to adapt my Rosary to include a quick 'signage sweep' after each 'Ave'
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And in each country I've walked through, apart from Spain, I've had, at various levels, to 'explain' myself-the 'who, what and why' I'm doing it (and let me stress I don't mind doing that) So all in all choosing other routes is a little like following the course of a tributary downstream- to varying degrees there's always a bit of 'bushwhacking' that has to go on and that can be charming, challenging, enjoyable, adventurous, exciting.....but distracting!
On the CF (and probably all the other Spanish routes?) even though you're walking across one of the biggest countries in Europe one with profound, and proudly held, geographic, economic, political, social and cultural differences there is a powerful underlying and consistent 'current' that one feels immediately but it's hard to describe (sorry!). It means that an elderly lady feeding her chickens outside a tiny hamlet, a young businessman powering along a busy city street or a bunch of stoned but charming youths at a street party all not only give time to help/redirect/give information to a bewildered pilgrim they 'recognise' a pilgrim and seem to understand and respect, in an almost instinctive and visceral way, the concept of pilgrimage itself-in the very broadest sense of that word.
Perhaps it's that comprehensive popular understanding of, and sympathy towards, pilgrimage (specifically pilgrimage to their national saint?) that is so different? I've never had to 'explain' my pilgrim self to Spain because, it seems, Spain already knows who, what and why I'm am. And I do look forward to being a mindless (in the best sense) pilgrim back in the powerful flow of that mainstream once again.
I don't know what route you should take or where you should begin but I do know that en route to Santiago De Compostela you will, like all of us, end up walking, literally and metaphorically, into the heart of Spain.