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From Toulouse the Camino goes over the Pyrennes and joins the Camino Frances. You don't have to go to St. Jean Pied de Port.Hello!
Does anyone know of a Camino from Bologna, Italy to Tolouse, France?
Would like to do a Camino next year. Thinking about starting in Lourdes and walking to Tolouse. From there I would either like to walk to St. Jeann to do the Camino Frances (did this in 2019), or walk to Bologna, Italy. Any help would be appreciated!
Should be a piece of cake! Only about 1300 k from Toulouse to Bologna. Take the Arles camino east until it ends. Then you'll pick up the Via Aurelia, which eventually turns into the Via della Costa near the Italian border. Follow that down past Genova and through the Cinque Terre (I recommend the higher route to avoid the tourist throngs), eventually skirting La Spezia and hooking up with the Via Francigena at Sarzana. After a brief stint on the Via Francigena, you'll head east across the Apennines on various CAI trails, eventually hitting the Fiume di Reno, which you'll follow into Sasso Marconi, where you'll pick up the Via degli Dei for delivery to the Piazza Maggiore in the heart of Bologna.Hello!
Does anyone know of a Camino from Bologna, Italy to Tolouse, France?
Would like to do a Camino next year. Thinking about starting in Lourdes and walking to Tolouse. From there I would either like to walk to St. Jeann to do the Camino Frances (did this in 2019), or walk to Bologna, Italy. Any help would be appreciated!
When I saw your proposed (wild and crazy) journey, I put together that itinerary mostly for fun, not thinking anyone would really follow it.Oh wow! This is awesome! Thank you so much - this is very helpful!
I'm flattered! But as I said above, I was just having a good time playing around with mapy.cz to plan out what sounded like a wild and crazy adventure. Of all the trails I mentioned, or that might be on your route, the only ones I've actually walked are the Via degli Dei from Rome to Florence, the Via Francigena the length of Italy down to Rome, the trail through Cinque Terre, and the Arles / Aragones / Frances combo from Oloron St. Marie in France to Santiago. The rest were all suggested by mapy.cz.Hi @andycohn, I am thinking about doing something like you have listed here. I currently live in Bologna, and was planning to hike the Camino Frances in August, but I am now wondering if I should just walk all the way from Bologna to Santiago. I have ~60 days free, and I have a history of wilderness thru-hiking (AZT) doing upwards of 50kms a day (rarely, but some days) with a much heavier pack (food, tent, etc).
You seem ot have a great understanding of the trails here in Europe. Woudl you be up to gameplanning a route?
Neither the Way to Rome nor the Camino pass through the Cinque Terre ; though there are occasional pleasant views from up there into them.2. The crowds in mid-summer on the Cinque Terre will be enormous, and I hear that access on the main trail is now limited.
Great, thank you so much for the help. This is exactly the type of feedback I was looking for when I orriginally asked for your help, so thank you!Wow! That's impressive navigation. In theory, it looks doable, but I have no first-hand experience with anything between the end of the Cinque Terre in Italy and Oleron St-Marie in France.
Some suggestions / questions:
1. Are you planning to skip the Pistoia - Lucca section? The Cammino di San Jacopo does connect the two places, and it has (what appears to be) a very useful website, referenced in my post #6, above.
2. Looks like your route on the Cammino Della Costa avoids Cinque Terre completely. Given the crowds there in summer, that's probably a good thing. And I see you've found the guidebooks published by Terre di Mezzo, which are quite helpful.
3. It also looks like most of your route along the southern coast of France avoids going through the big cities, but if you're worried about accommodations in the bigger cities, you could simply check a site like booking.com to see what's available tomorrow. That will give you a sense of availability in general. For example, checking Nice for tomorrow night -- a Saturday -- shows nothing in the way of inexpensive hotels, but quite a few hostels where you can get a bed for around $50 American. (I have no idea what your budget is, of course).
4. If you're worried about time pressures, you could consider skipping the section across southern France, which seems to have the least walkers' infrastructure. Of course, I have no personal familiarity with this stretch, and you might want to check out some of the blogs of the people who have walked the Via Aurelia and / or the Cammino della Costa.
5. When you get to Oleron St. Marie, you might consider staying on the Camino de Arles, instead of heading over to St. Jean Pied de Port and the start of the Camino Frances. The Arles route turns into the Camino Aragones at the Somport pass, which is the border with Spain, and joins the Camino Frances just past Pamplona. (if you want to go into Pamplona itself, mapy.cz will show you a cut-off that will take you there from near the end of the Aragonese). The Arles / Aragones route will give you a much more tranquil entry into Spain than going via St. Jean Pied de Port, and IMHO, it's a much more beautiful traverse of the Pyrenees. There's also plenty of pilgrim infrastructure on the Arles - Aragones combo, and you won't have to fight for a bed as you will along the first few stages of the Frances.
6. If you find the Frances too crowded for your taste, you could cut off it at Ponferrada and follow the Camino Invierno into Santiago. The last 100 kilometers on the Frances, from Sarria onwards, will be incredibly crowded, so this gives you an alternative. Of course, you may welcome the company!
7. The Spanish web-site, gronze.com, is a terrific source for information, especially on available, pilgrim -friendly accommodations. It has sections covering the Via Francigena, the Arles router, and all the possibile caminos you'll follow in Spain
That's my 2 cents for the day! You've enabled me to avoid doing any planning for my own camino coming up in September. I definitely find it more fun to plan someone else's life than my own.
Thank you, I am having a little tough time finding these routes on the internet so your experience is super useful. My expectation was that I will not meet any other pilgrims doing this route until I get to SJPP. I was surprised to hear you say there is even an Albergue in the region. Are all of these routes marked along the way, or what is the best way to ensure I am on trail? Is it possible to find pilgrim places to stay (churches or albergues)? Additionally, in the USA, on our Long-trails, we have something called Trail Angels where they support the network by either helping hikers or even giving them a place to stay. Is that something on these Caminos? How would you go about finding them if so? I am not worried about budget whatsoever, but find that these type of accomodations really amplify the experience and community which is the important part for me.I am sorry that I did not see this thread earlier.
I have walked most of the proposed route.
The only real mistake I can see in the Italian section is Pistoia > Lucca instead of Pistoia > Pisa.
Yes you can do Pistoia > Lucca > Pisa, but in any case, skipping Pisa is more or less a crime.
After Saint-Raphaël, you really need to go via Roquebrune-sur-Argens, Saint-Maximin, and Aix-en-Provence because of the support network, the better walking and better pilgrimage culture (including the one Albergue in the region), and also because it's just the historic route.
I have DIY'd in the region myself, and it's just more pain than gain.
Marseilles should be outright and actively avoided !! I walked through the city once, and it was not a worthwhile experience.
After that it's fairly classic.
Neither the Way to Rome nor the Camino pass through the Cinque Terre ; though there are occasional pleasant views from up there into them.
There is a Camino support network on the French part to Arles, but contacting them might involve a little bit of luck ; which is another reason to follow the Provençal Way proper instead of your own DIY
1. There are other possibilities, too, on well-marked routes to get from Bologna to Lucca. See my posts #5 and 6, above. Via degli Dei, out of Bologna down to Florence, will be most traveled. Jabba Papa mentioned Pisa, but it is a detour from Lucca. You'd have to walk south from Lucca and then turn around and come back to the Via Francigena. Beautiful city, but might be best done as a day trip when you return to Bologna (and when the crowds have abated).Great, thank you so much for the help. This is exactly the type of feedback I was looking for when I orriginally asked for your help, so thank you!
1: No, I wasn’t planning skipping it, but wasn’t sure the correct route. Thank you for the suggestion, I’ll update my post.
3: I think I’d enjoy hitting the bigger cities though. Which are you referencing I am missing? I tried to change the route to include Nice and Marseille. Based on Jabba's post, I actually just removed Marseille and St Tropez from my newest route (in my post after this). Maybe I will train into towns and train back to the trail.
5: I’ll keep this in mind when I get there. I may be (Most likely) so starved of community that I may just try to jump on the Frances as fast as possible in SJPP. This new plan will probably put me right during the high season though.
7: Thank you, I will check it out. I would love to stay in Pilgrim accommodation as much as possible but I realize there probably isn’t very much along this route until I reach SJPP.
Regarding budget, I have no worries on budget whatsoever. But, I would like to stay in Albergues or churches or other community places as much as possible for the experience/community building. I am actually dredding the idea of having to stay in a fancy hotel by myself every night while doing this (disregarding budget), and that is my biggest hesitation of doing this route from Bologna to SJPP given I doubt there will be very many pilgrim accomadations. I want to see people, hear stories, eat with others, and grow with others. I have found that generally I can meet people, even if they are not hikers when traveling, but I realize I’ll be traveling in some small cities and I only speak Italian and English which they may not speak. I am not sure this route from Bologna will have that community portion I am searching for. This is also why I was attempting to keep my average KMs a bit lower in general. If I am averaging 40+/day, I will not find a trail family.
I appreciate your help! I am about at 90% convinced to do this route now, starting August 14th or 15th. With a plan to build distance the first week, knock out some big days for a few weeks (I think I could average 40 given the cities fall in the right spots) and this should be a section that there is not a lot of pilgrim community, and then I will slow back down once I get on the Frances to try to enjoy it and the community a bit more. Although the idea of skipping the French coast portion does sound nice, I’d like to walk the whole thing if possible. But I cannot deny that cutting out 200-300 kms makes it so much easier to smell the flowers along the way. Maybe my ideas on this will change along my Camino.
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