Many new pilgrims worry about the official protocols and documents needed to crossed from France to Spain on the French Way. WELCOME TO SPAIN!! Make sure you don' t miss it!!
Alas, when I arrived to France from England (before that Canada, where I'm from), the passport people didn't think it was necessary to give me a passport stamp. I crossed over into Spain (easy peesy) high up in the Pyrenees and had a fantastic Camino walk to Santiago then Finesterre and Muxia. When I left, I was to fly out of A Coruña to return to England. Because my passport showed an English stamp on a Canadian passport but no French or Spanish stamps, I was almost not allowed to leave! I told the border officer I had walked the Camino but it didn't make any difference to him. Finally I think he decided it just wasn't worth the hassle of detaining me. He finally let me board the plane but it was a good 5-10 minutes of him deciding and me waiting.
Lesson learned? Get a stamp in my passport in one of the Schengen Area countries. England is not one of those!
@PEI_Heather . Heather the question of passport stamps by Immigration/Border officials is interesting and your experiences will prompt me to ask the French official at CDG Airport next April.
I recently visited Albania, here is the summary of stamp/no stamp procedures: no stamp on arrival (at the International Airport!); no stamp on departure to Kosovo (in fact there were no officials at the Albania post); coming from Macedonia (FYROM?!) we did get stamps; departing international airport - again no stamp. Arriving and departing Italy was a similar event - no visible stamp on arrival - but a departure stamp (going to Albania) - as per Italian practice no one cared!! Of course back home with the new smart chip passports stamps are virtually a thing of the past. At least African countries still stamp, still issue full page visas - a REAL record of ones travels.
there are no borders as such, you just have to think of it like the USA, you show your passport when you arrive in the EU and from then on you move about just within Europe just as you would within the USA.
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