Signing on the Cami San Jaume

[dave54]

I'm just back from the Cami from LLanca to Monserrat and would like to alert walkers to a potential problem. I found the signing to be very patchy, varying from day to day. In particular I made a serious error in a town called Pontos. I had come to rely on yellow stripes (not arrows) as they had been very good on the early stages. In Pontos the stripes went one way and a yellow arrow went another way. I followed the stripes and got seriously lost. I don't want to put people off this route but equally I don't want anyone to make the same mistake I did. Dave

 

[sandykayak]

LOL. I thought the reason there weren't any replies was because there aren't many deaf people or others who can sign on this forum!

I confused signing (as in sign language) with signage. And people have trouble with Spanish/English terminology!!

 

[peregrina2000]

Hi, davd54,
I walked the St. Jaume with a GPS. I use it in a kind of weird way. I don't regularly rely on it when I walk, I only pull it out when I am in a pinch. And to tell you the truth, I do remember a few, but not many spots like the one you describe, though I had an easy painless short walk from Figueres to Báscara with no problems. As a single woman walking alone, my family insists that I use it when I walk solitary routes, and it saved me on a couple of occasions on the Castellano-Aragonés this past summer. The St. Jaume is such a beautiful route, and I found that the Generalitat had gone to great lengths to put up pretty impressive "Cami St. Jaume" markers (those blue signs on big wooden posts). But I still would recommend that especially if you are going to walk alone, a GPS is a very good investment. Buen camino, Laurie

 

[Felice]

Hi Dave, I walked the Cami in May this year. Beautiful walk then, with wonderful wild flowers.
I totally agree that the signing in patchy. Some stretches it is brilliantly well marked, then the next section - where have all the arrows gone? There's even the odd blue sign in a misleading place.

Laurie did a brilliant posting on the Cami, which is why I walked it. She also gave a link to her GPS tracks, which I found essential. Each evening, I would study her GPS track, and familiarise myself with it. I also scrolled over the next day's walk on my ipad mini, on google earth, giving myself really detailed maps to follow. This saved the day on several occasions when the signs were not there.

There was only one place where I got lost. It was in the plantations between Cervia de Ter and Medinya. The signs there were very misleading and I made the mistake of following the tracks made by a bike rather than pulling out my ipad from my rucksack. I got seriously off track and although I knew exactly where I was, trying to get through was ghastly. It was not helped by the fact that there had been a very heavy downpour the night before and the ground near the river was a swamp.

So next time when I was unsure of where to go, which was up on the Collsacabra, I pulled out my ipad in good time and worked out that I had to go down a farm track and not continue along the toad. This was where the blue post was in a misleading place.

What did you think of Montserrat? Crazy place on a Sunday in the summer, but the crowds of Spaniards on church outings manage to give it a lovely atmosphere regardless of the tourist tat. And it is magic last thing in the evening and first thing in the morning. So glad I did that walk.

 

[david54]

Hi Dave, I walked the Cami in May this year. Beautiful walk then, with wonderful wild flowers.
I totally agree that the signing in patchy. Some stretches it is brilliantly well marked, then the next section - where have all the arrows gone? There's even the odd blue sign in a misleading place.

Laurie did a brilliant posting on the Cami, which is why I walked it. She also gave a link to her GPS tracks, which I found essential. Each evening, I would study her GPS track, and familiarise myself with it. I also scrolled over the next day's walk on my ipad mini, on google earth, giving myself really detailed maps to follow. This saved the day on several occasions when the signs were not there.

There was only one place where I got lost. It was in the plantations between Cervia de Ter and Medinya. The signs there were very misleading and I made the mistake of following the tracks made by a bike rather than pulling out my ipad from my rucksack. I got seriously off track and although I knew exactly where I was, trying to get through was ghastly. It was not helped by the fact that there had been a very heavy downpour the night before and the ground near the river was a swamp.

So next time when I was unsure of where to go, which was up on the Collsacabra, I pulled out my ipad in good time and worked out that I had to go down a farm track and not continue along the toad. This was where the blue post was in a misleading place.

What did you think of Montserrat? Crazy place on a Sunday in the summer, but the crowds of Spaniards on church outings manage to give it a lovely atmosphere regardless of the tourist tat. And it is magic last thing in the evening and first thing in the morning. So glad I did that walk.

 

[dave54]

Hi Felice,

Unfortunately the weather was terrible on the day I walked to Monserrat, perhaps I will have more luck (and technology) if I walk on next year.

Dave

 

[Sitkapilgrim]

Hi Felice,

Unfortunately the weather was terrible on the day I walked to Monserrat, perhaps I will have more luck (and technology) if I walk on next year.

Dave
[/QUOTE

 

[Sitkapilgrim]

To Dave and others - i wish I had remembered your post about Pontós! I made exactly the same mistake 2 days ago and walked due west instead of due south for a good four km in the woods. Just following yellow dashes....

When I finally got to Bàscara later than intended and explained my missing the arrow, the pension lady just smiled sadly and kindly said that everyone makes that mistake. And I had a compass, google map access and Laurie ‘s GPS maps - just didn’t realize I had gone wrong for the longest time.

Of course it didn’t much matter. A beautiful day, and met a woman gathering wild asparagus.