sellos

[belinha]

Hi Everyone,

Just read that the pilgrim office in Santiago is now requesting two sellos per day for the last 100kms. Does anybody know if this applies to Camino Portugues?

Isabel

 

[JohnnieWalker]

I'm not at all sure how rigidly this is being applied. Rather it seems to be a strategy aimed at identifying people who have not taken the pilgrimage seriously. I submitted my Pilgrim Record for the Camino Ingles recently which had five or 6 sellos over the 5 day journey and they were content with that - they did however ask questions about where I had started, how long it had taken and so on.

The same thing happened when I finished the VdlP - they recognise that on some routes sellos are easier to obtain than others.

 

[belinha]

Thanks Johnie for the info. I agree with you it is a way of the Pilgrim office keeping control. Not worried.

Isabel

 

[peskywabbit]

I recall when I did the CFrances the requirement was to get 2 sellos per day, for the last 100kms. So I just assumed the requirement also applied to the CPortugues' last 100kms, and made sure I got them

 

[Athena]

I'm not sure if I met the requirement of two sellos a day for the last 100kms...but they didn't really question me when I handed them my passport. What they did comment on, which I thought was peculiar, was how important it was that I managed to obtain a stamp from the cathedral itself.

Upon arriving, I did the traditional visit to the Tree of Jesse and Maestro Mateo, but when I went up to hug the statue of the apostle, the gentleman offered to stamp my passport to certify the end of my camino. I wouldn't have thought to have asked, but at the Pilgrim Office, they seemed pleased to see it.

Bom Caminho,
Athena

 

[rafferty]

Hi there,Yes do do have to have two or more stamps per day for the last 100kms through Galicia.There are so many people cheating now just to get the Compestellanae(certificate)that they have tightened up the rules.From next year they will be tighter again with the cathedral in Santiago being in sole control of issuing all pilgrim passports via "appropriate outlets".

 

[Anonymous]

...when I went up to hug the statue of the apostle, the gentleman offered to stamp my passport to certify the end of my camino. I wouldn't have thought to have asked, but at the Pilgrim Office, they seemed pleased to see it.

Another person who would be very pleased to see it would be Angel, who runs the excellent website with over a thousand sellos on it: http://www.lossellosdelcamino.com
I think we should really support this site - and make an effort to send in photos of sellos Angel has not yet collected - for two reasons. First, because this is a contemporary record of the culture of the modern day pilgrim which will be of value to future historians. And second, for a reason I've just tuned into myself: you can see in advance where to go and collect the sellos that will look good on your credencial!
There are some pretty naff sellos out there: let's raise the standard by only seeking out the quality sellos, like these four pictured above, which I've selected from Angel's site as good quality examples. Angel's site tells you where to seek out each sello: alongside the picture there's a brief description of the place where it can be obtained. In some towns there are a range of sellos to be found, and the pretty ones are worth seeking out. Of course, some of the sellos illustrated on the site will not be currently available, but once again, Angel dates them on his site, so you can suppose the recent ones will still be available.

I've established contact with Angel and I'm going to send him all my stamps from the Le Puy to SJPP route from my 2006 Chemin St Jacques, which he is lacking on his site. Can other pilgrims, who may have credenciales from previous trips, likewise help identify gaps in his collection and fill them in for him by photographing your credencial?

Angel has a blog too: http://lossellosdelcamino.blogspot.com

Gareth

 

[ksam]

Another person who would be very pleased to see it would be Angel, who runs the excellent website with over a thousand sellos on it: http://www.lossellosdelcamino.com

Just wanted to say thank you so much for the link to Angels site. I enjoyed browsing the pages of sellos for the Camino Portuguese. I've actually printed them and will copy them...smaller and carry them w/us so we remember where to obtain some of them. I loved the one from the library esp. having been a parochial school librarian and managed a bookstore...so that is one I am sure to look for!

One question ... the two per day...would that be starting in the morning and ending the day of hiking?? or two diff locals in the town?? Only 49 more days! Can hardly wait!

Karin

 

[Anonymous]

Just wanted to say thank you so much for the link to Angels site. I enjoyed browsing the pages of sellos for the Camino Portuguese. I've actually printed them and will copy them...smaller and carry them w/us so we remember where to obtain some of them.

Good: that's exactly what I thought people could use the site for.

Your question about the two-per-day: I think the idea is that you simply demonstrate you've done the walk properly by getting your credencial stamped with sellos at regular intervals, not time-wise but distance-wise. So maybe in the middle of your day's walk and at the end of the day at the place you stay, is minimum requirement. I sometimes collect three or four in a day. Going from London in May, I'm hoping to get my CSJ credencial stamped with the CSJ stamp and the Spanish embassy sello and the Westminster cathedral stamp, before I set off. I have 28 A5-size pages in my pilgrim passport, ready for a journey of 74 days to Santiago (and a few more after that to Fisterra.) So I'm looking to collect about two-hundred sellos in total!

Here's the Samos monastery sello. I stayed there for three days last August after I couldn't walk downhill from O Cebreiro and the medic at Triacastela signed me off with tendinitis. So I had three days to admire the Benedictine monastery sello, as there was nothing much else to do in Samos...

Gareth

 

[ksam]

I guess another way of looking a the stamps or Sellos..is as an ancient form of "postcards" or photos of my trip...in times when such things weren't possible. How else to show the folks back home all the places and spaces you visited! We will take great care to see that we collect them wherever and whenever we can...may even do as you are planning and get one from the nearest Spanish embassy! I believe there is one in Philadelphia, which is close to home for me...or perhaps when I run up to NYC this weekend...perhaps I can check there! Would be a nice way to begin. Thanks again for the great suggestions.

I do find it hard to fathom why some people would fudge something like this...I fully understand grey areas, but somethings in life either are or are not..to me this is one of those situations. You either do it right...or just say you went on vacation...not a pilgramage! :roll:

Wishing you Buen Camino
Karin,

 

[almastudio]

Hi Gareth,
I'm Ángel from Los sellos del Camino. Thank you for your post. All of you are invited to colaborated sending me your sellos. The only thing I'm sorry that the page is only in spanish by the moment.
We keep in touch in http://www.lossellosdelcamino.com
Thanks and buen Camino

 

[rachelvi]

I have visited the los sellos de camino website and it is beautiful.

Does anyone know of a printable list of available sellos (and maybe their addresses) on the Camino Frances. I'd like to try to get as many as possible, but I suppose it will be hard if I am not sure where to look.

Thanks!

Rachel

 

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know of a printable list of available sellos (and maybe their addresses) on the Camino Frances. I'd like to try to get as many as possible, but I suppose it will be hard if I am not sure where to look.

I shouldn't imagine such a thing exists: it would be constantly changing anyway. Sellos come and sellos go, but the Camino goes on forever! I remember the time when I walked nearly 100km out of my way - while on the Chemin St Jacques south of Bordeaux - to a place called Moustey, inspired by meeting a French pilgrim in Rouen who had shown me a stamp in old credencial from a few years back. It was a special "1000 km à Compostelle" stamp, as they have an old kilometre stone there in the churchyard with that nice magic number on it! When I got to Moustey, I just managed to get to the mairie before it closed for lunch. Alas, they knew nothing of such a stamp but suggested I try the alimentation shop. "Yes, we did have such a stamp once," said the lady in the shop, "but few pilgrims come through here and I don't know what became of the stamp." Crestfallen, I went to eat in the restaurant opposite the 1000 km stone. Just to keep my hopes up, I asked, "Do you have a pilgrim stamp here?" The restaurant owner looked puzzled, then smiled. "We don't get pilgrims here: you want to go to Lourdes."

The sellos website is a good guide, but finding the places to get the sellos is really part of the fun, and once you are walking you soon pick up an instinct for the kind of place to find the sellos.

 

[sillydoll]

Rachel, nearly every shop, cafe-bar, hotel, hostel, inn, library, police station, tourist office, church, municipal office, albergue etc etc have stamps.
There are a few well known ones - like the Felisa stamp which is offered by Maria as you walk into Logrono. Felisa died in Oct 2002 but her daughter took over the table outside their ramshackle home and still offers "Higos, Agua y amor (Figs, water and love).
Then there is Marcelino Lobato's stamp. When he isn't out walking a pilgrimage route in his long medieval robe covered in badges and shells, upturned hat and staff - he sits in a 3-sided hut in the woods outside Logrono offering fruit, nuts, biscuits and, sometimes, walking sticks, and a stamp.

 

[crackmrmac]

Gareth, It seems even sellos from same place change. My sello, received July'09 from Albergue de Peregrino in Monasterio de Samos differs from one shown in your post. There is a "picture" in each of the four quadrants.

Sil, Seeing Marcelino's & Felisa's sello could be a reason for going on Camino again!!! But would that be a shopping list???

Edit: Had a look at Angel's site and it has examples of different stamps from same place.

 

[peregrino robert]

Hi
I walked the Caminho Portugues last year and olny got the stamp at the albergue.
Where do they expect us to get the second stamp??
I'm walking again this year same route but via Vila do Conde..

Robert

Bom Caminho

Sempre vai com os olhos abertos

 

[sillydoll]

Everybody has stamps - police stations, tourism offices, cafe-bars, retaurants, hotels etc etc

 

[Rebekah Scott]

...unless you take an alternate route into Santiago. I tried hard to get those two stamps a day on the last bits of the Camino Invierno, and was hard-pressed some days to find anyone who had an idea of what I was talking about! But as I´ve said elsewhere, I now have a credential stamped by a slaughterhouse, a chainsaw dealer, a lottery agent, a health center, and the only known Bangladeshi döner kebab vendor in Galicia!

 

[oursonpolaire]

My Spanish friends were always very impressed by the two sellos I obtained from Guardia Civil outposts in Catalonia and rural Aragon, one of them mischievously asking if they applied electrodes before or after (referring to the Guardia's unfortunate reputation under Franco). They were disappointed when I told them that, not only was I not tortured, but that I was given coffee and hand-squeezed orange juice, with handshakes all round. One pilgrim got his sello from the Royal Military Veterinary College in Burgos, which I think is fairly unique, but perhaps my favourite was the Don Juan School of Physical Therapy.

Ayuntamientos are also a good source for sellos on less-frequented routes, but I was generally able to rely on parishes and convents and monasteries (but the priest at the cathedral in Huesca seemed quite scandalized by the suggestion -- happily I obtained one from the friendly rector of a local parish in the rough end of town).

 

[kstaylor]

I was about two days from Santiago at my slow pace, taking a brief 'standing rest' by proping my backpack on a fence railing to let my shoulders breathe a bit, when an ambulance stopped. My first thought "Was do I look so bad that I need assistance?" I had just finshed a short but steep hill. A man jumped out of the ambulance, ran to me and asked if I wanted their sello. So the sello from the Proteccion Civil of the Concello de Valga will be one of the more memorable -- even if not for the design.

Kit
kstaylor@@centurytel.net

 

[JohnnieWalker]

Amazing. There are increasing reports of police and ambulance stopping to ask pilgrims if they are ok and offering a sello. Clearly the Holy Year is bringing goodwill

 

[mmonomm]

it was incredible for me too. after just getting out of a forest, there were some policemen, asking if everyone is ok, not a medical injury, helping taking photos about the group, and after all, affering a sello
a very nice experience, happened just 2 weeks ago

or another police car stopped, as we were just eating something as we sat down on our rucksacks along the road. the policemen stopped to ask us if we were ok, if we knew that there is an albergue 200 m away, to get some rest.

incredible experience, as if everybody on the road would be there to help the pilgrims

 

[Deleted member 3000]

After crossing Somport Pass in the snow and taking a break at Canfranc Estacion, we continued down the road in rain and 50 kph headwinds. A police car came down the hill, an officer hopped out and took our picture, then drove on down the road. No sello. We later surmised that he added us to his album under "idiots." It was the highlight of and otherwise bleak day.

 

[hel&scott]

I see the sello thread is still running, I saw this a while back and checked out Angels web page http://www.lossellosdelcamino.com which is very interesting for sello nuts like us. Good to see the local policia getting in on the action, one of our favourite sellos from our travels is from the Guardia Seville, given their history its a little odd asking them for help or a stamp but they will give it, even if it is accompanied by a raised eyebrow and rye smile.