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You and I may not view them as suggested stages, but certainly many/most pilgrims do, hence the oversized crowds at some places. Gronze literally labels them "stage". I tend to pick my stops based on distance and suitable accommodation/food, but if I find myself in a particularly crowded bubble in the last 100km I want to know where the majority are stopping, so that I can stop elsewhere (ie "mid-stage").
Excellent, that's what I was hoping.
I have a very old copy of Brierley's CF guide (from 2009). In this guide, the stage from Palais de Rei finishes at Ribadiso. On Gronze, it continues to Arzua.
I asked John Brierley once when he decided, after telling pilgrims not to stop in one town, that now they should stop there. He was quite bothered that I’d suggested he “told” pilgrims where to stop, that he given us stages. “It’s just what fit on a page,” he said. In my view, there’s only one stage: from my front door to the crypt in the Cathedral.
Unfortunately some people have chosen to walk their Camino strictly according to Brierley's stages - assuming that the stages in the best-selling English language guidebook must be practical and the "right" way to walk. Then found themselves struggling to keep up with their pre-booked accommodation. I have even met someone who was very surprised that I was choosing my own stopping places and asked in all apparent seriousness "Are you allowed to do that?" What the Blessed JB intended and how his guide is used in practice can be very different.
I have a similar view to @t2andreo about planning my stages, and it does not involve looking to a guidebook like Brierley's as something to follow strictly on how far to walk each day and where to stay each night. As I age, I am no longer interested in doing much more than 20 km/day, and even that might get shorter. It is then relatively easy to use a site like Godesalco.com or the new camino planner on this site to sketch out a walking and accommodation schedule. If there are no suitable places to stay, as was the case when I walked from Lisbon to Fatima in 2023, I will look at how to make my schedule more manageable by using public transport to shuttle back and forth, or how to use a complementary route that might offer better options for me.
This method is also convenient for figuring out the "expected arrival time" requested by so many private accommodations these days. Just a little different... Total Distance Planned divided by average pace + anticipated departure time.
Interesting. I often walk more slowly on downhills, especially if I have to negotiate a rocky terrain - I'm looking at you descent to El Acebo!
Agreed, but treacherous conditions are a situation apart. I might slow down to almost zero, and any general "plan" is discarded. In clear weather without treacherous conditions I walk faster on a moderately downhill stretch than on an uphill one.
I ignore stages. Walk as long or short as I feel like at the time so I do MyStages
I do the same usually, but not for the first time walking a route. The first time I trust and am thankful for the guidance... I'll make my plans according to me the next time. Mostly.
There is still a lot of research undertaken about this, ever since Naismith formulated his seminal rule about the effects of slope on walking time. The results that @t2andreao uses seem to generally hold true for slopes up to -10%, where speeds start to fall below the speed on level terrain. Maximum walking speeds appear to peak at a slope of -5%. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobler's_hiking_function for a short, albeit relatively technical, description of Tobler's hiking function, one of several formulae that describe this effect.
Are pilgrims choosing to stop in those towns because they are the end point of a stage described by a guidebook or website? Or did the authors of guides choose the most obvious end points because of their size, facilities and location? I stopped in places like Los Arcos, Santo Domingo de la Calzada and Burgos long before Gronze or the Brierley guides existed simply because they felt like a natural place to stop. Nothing at all to do with guide stages.
For the most part it would be the latter I’d assume. Guidebook authors would have picked stops that make sense. That said, in areas where there are lots of places to stop within a few kms of each other, the largest number of pilgrims will stop where the guidebook suggests.
I met a Dutch pilgrim completely in tears in Palas de Rei because she was full os blisters and cramps from 2 days of walking. She said the stages were too long for her and she was thinking about quitting, because she didn't believe she could do the next stage to Arzua (28km).
I think the idea of “stages” is misleading. It depends on your age and fitness.
Which is exactly why you need to know what the stages are so that you know which towns are "between stages."
The Eroski guides are excellent on route descriptions and background information. The accommodation details are often incomplete and not up to date though. I use Gronze for that. Put the two sites together and I find I have a fairly comprehensive guide.
