Camino Ingles or Frances - last 100 km?

[lisaandkids]

Hi Everyone!

We (me with 2 adult daughters) recently walked from Vigo to Santiago de Compostela using the Spiritual Variant. My husband and son now want to go next year. That walk was fairly difficult for me (54 years old in good health) and I'm trying to decide which one my husband and son should walk. I found I could do 15 miles with no problems but anything above that tended to be hard, especially with altitude gains. It looks like either the Camino Ingles from Ferrol or the Camino Frances from Sarria might be a bit easier. I'm leaning toward the Camino Ingles due to it being not as busy. Does anyone have an opinion? Or should I consider a different route? What I found is that we were ready to quit by about 12 -15 miles every day.

We will walk at the beginning of next June.

 

[K_Lynn]

I (58F) walked Ingles last October with my sister (61). She found some of the hills extremely challenging. Pontedeume to Betanzos starts and ends with brutal hills. We both really liked the route and did not find the days overly long. I previously walked Frances from SJPdP and found the last stages from Sarria to be fine in terms of hills and there was only one long day.

If you're planning on walking again, I would recommend more training with your pack, especially some hills or at least stairs.

 

[Peterexpatkiwi]

I thoroughly enjoyed the Inglès.
You are correct in that it is nowhere near as busy as the section from Saria, but it does still host quite a number of pilgrims. Possibilities exist to walk shorter stages, so keeping it down to 20 kilometers (or less) a day is very doable. While most walk it in five days, there have been many who have taken eight or more. Should you decide to walk this route do book Bruma (or stage around it) it's a well-known pinch point.
Yes there are indeed a couple of steeper climbs, however they are relatively short.
You might find this from @Elle Bieling useful:

The Camino Inglés

The less traveled Camino Inglés or English Way, gives you the real opportunity for experiencing the Galician culture.

www.pilgrimagetraveler.com

 

[lisaandkids]

I (58F) walked Ingles last October with my sister (61). She found some of the hills extremely challenging. Pontedeume to Betanzos starts and ends with brutal hills. We both really liked the route and did not find the days overly long. I previously walked Frances from SJPdP and found the last stages from Sarria to be fine in terms of hills and there was only one long day.

If you're planning on walking again, I would recommend more training with your pack, especially some hills or at least stairs.

Hi K Lynn,

I'm not sure I could do more training. I started 3 months prior to the trip with the last 6 weeks with my pack. We did 5 days of walking and on our 3rd or 4th day (heading to the monastery) we had a solid 7 hour uphill climb. My husband would not have been able to do that, regardless of the training. Your knees might be better than ours!

 

[lisaandkids]

I thoroughly enjoyed the Inglès.
You are correct in that it is nowhere near as busy as the section from Saria, but it does still host quite a number of pilgrims. Possibilities exist to walk shorter stages, so keeping it down to 20 kilometers (or less) a day is very doable. While most walk it in five days, there have been many who have taken eight or more. Should you decide to walk this route do book Bruma (or stage around it) it's a well-known pinch point.
Yes there are indeed a couple of steeper climbs, however they are relatively short.
You might find this from @Elle Bieling useful:

The Camino Inglés

The less traveled Camino Inglés or English Way, gives you the real opportunity for experiencing the Galician culture.

www.pilgrimagetraveler.com

Thanks Peter! I'll look into that.

 

[caminocoffee]

Hi Everyone!

We (me with 2 adult daughters) recently walked from Vigo to Santiago de Compostela using the Spiritual Variant. My husband and son now want to go next year. That walk was fairly difficult for me (54 years old in good health) and I'm trying to decide which one my husband and son should walk. I found I could do 15 miles with no problems but anything above that tended to be hard, especially with altitude gains. It looks like either the Camino Ingles from Ferrol or the Camino Frances from Sarria might be a bit easier. I'm leaning toward the Camino Ingles due to it being not as busy. Does anyone have an opinion? Or should I consider a different route? What I found is that we were ready to quit by about 12 -15 miles every day.

We will walk at the beginning of next June.

You do not have to stick with the stages people/apps/books recommend. Make your own stages. Freedom of walking a camino!
When we did the Portuguese from Valença we had short stages of about10km and long stages about 20km. We decided to do average 15km stages next year. No more. It is not a race. Enjoy everything and stop everywhere.

 

[lisaandkids]

You do not have to stick with the stages people/apps/books recommend. Make your own stages. Freedom of walking a camino!
When we did the Portuguese from Valença we had short stages of about10km and long stages about 20km. We decided to do average 15km stages next year. No more. It is not a race. Enjoy everything and stop everywhere.

Hi Caminocoffee!

I agree that's a wonderful way to travel but how do you find accommodations when you are ready to stop for the night? When we walked Vigo to Santiago in June, there were times we wanted to stop but no place to stay.

 

[caminocoffee]

Hi Caminocoffee!

I agree that's a wonderful way to travel but how do you find accommodations when you are ready to stop for the night? When we walked Vigo to Santiago in June, there were times we wanted to stop but no place to stay.

We pre-booked. We will also pre-book for our camino in July 2025. It takes time to plan the route. I booked, cancelled, recalculated, booked again. One of the toughest days was a 10km from Padron to our pension. It was a lot of tar/asphalt and it was very hot. We started too late and had too much to eat before we started.
Now we know we cán do over 20km per day but we choose to do no more than 15km.

 

[Peterexpatkiwi]

It’s a bit longer than the Camino Inglés

Actually, in point of fact it's the other way round: the Camino Inglès is a couple of kilometers longer.