I was contacted separately by PM, and asked to weigh in on this thread. So, here I am to try to help ...
In reply to those who asked for input from a Pilgrim Office volunteer, I will tell you what I know from four years as a volunteer, each summer. Please bear in mind that there is no fully accurate answer, so you will have to interpolate from my comments.
FIRST - Church / Cathedral / Pilgrim Office rules are that a pilgrim must walk at least the FINAL 100 km on any Camino route to qualify for a Compostela. Bicyclists must ride a minimum of the final 200 km.
That accomplishment must be documented in an authorized pilgrim credencial / passport by obtaining a rubber stamp / sello from each place you stop. This includes hostals, albergues, hotels, cafes, bars, city and town offices, wherever you can get a stamp that affixes a geolocation and a date.
Again, rules state that the pilgrim must have two stamps / sellos per day starting at the 100 Km / 200 km threshold, inward to Santiago. (SEE ALSO POINT THREE, below)
In practice. this requirement is rarely invoked by the staff on pilgrims who show continuous long-distance progress from distance starting places: SJPdP, Pamplona, Barcelona, Sevilla, Irun, Porto, Madrid, etc. The staff KNOW who presents correctly as a long walker, versus a short distance walker (Sarria, Tui, Ourense, etc.). They simply "look" the part, talk the talk, and give every evidence of having truthfully walled a great distance. Limping qualifies as an endurance indicator, as do plaster casts...
Parenthetically, over the years. I have strolled in from Lisbon, SJPdP, Leon, etc. looking the part. Typically, I had at least one stamp per day, sometimes two, but I never worried too much about it. There was no problem.
Conversely, they can also recognize the folks who do the barest minimum effort to qualify. The short-walkers REALLY do look and present differently in the office. They tend to be cleaner, neater, better groomed, full of energy, their gear is typically very clean, and usually over-kill for the short distance walked.
Also, long-walker veterans have learned that a 50 or 60 liter rucksack with an external mounted sleeping bag, is typically over-the-top and way large for a July or August 118 km stroll from Sarria. The short-walk folks have not learned that lesson...yet.
Also, in July and August, the short-walker
groups usually self-identify by wearing bright & garish t-shirts with pithy graphics and logos, that I have come to view as being inversely proportional to the effort expended. The more garish the camiseta, the shorter the distance likely walked.
I am rarely wrong, in this regard. Although in August 2017 a large (very large) group of folks in bright yellow camisetas did walk from Sevilla to celebrate their 25th anniversary as a Camino organization, BRAVO!!! They arranged and paid for the Botafumeiro to fly at the TWO Masses they laid on to accommodate the walkers in the group and family members who traveled to join them on this special occasion. This was a clear exception to my observed general rule.
OTOH, long-walkers are grimy, stained, weary, in pain, sometimes limping, and their gear is equally worn and evidently used. I see lots of duck tape repairs. When I am working the queues, greeting and chatting with arriving pilgrims, I can almost always identify the long-walkers. I like to engage them in a conversation if I can (my Spanish is getting better but I am not there yet) if they have some English. Hearing their stories makes me mildly jealous.
SECOND - The Pilgrim Office databases have the "official" distance tables to Santiago from any point on any Camino route. Every village and hamlet is named, and the distance has been established. HOWEVER, there is, as of August 2017, no capability to use the computer to cobble together a complex routing based on a pilgrim scoring a trifecta or a multitude of other multi-Camino routes to arrive at Santiago.
In theory, it is possible to use a automated mapping program with a series of moveable position "dots," controlled my mouse clicks, like a mapping program might do to adjust a planned route to route you from point to point...but I digress. Because of this, some accommodation by the staff is necessary to handle this very rare but VERY time-consuming effort...
THIRD - As a Compostela is earned once you walk or peddle the minimum distance, the maximum or total distance you walked does not matter. Someone who walks from Sarria gets the same Compostela as the pilgrim who walked from Le Puy or SJPdP.
FOURTH - The total distance you walked DOES make a difference to issue the Certificado del Distancia / Distance Certificate. THAT document contains your starting point, as well as the total km travelled. The starting point is easy, and known.
However, bear in mind that the Distance Certificate is offered for reasons of vanity only. In fact, most of us call at the P/O refer to it as the "bragging rights" certificate. The point being that this certificate carries no official standing. But, if asked how YOU spent YOUR summer, you can produce this certificate to prove your accomplishment. It also looks nice framed.
When I encounter a family group doing one Camino together, I usually recommend to the parent in charge that they obtain individual Compostelas, but ask for one Distance Certificate to be done for the family, showing their family accomplishment, e.g. la familia Garcia-Perez.... This is a very popular notion. Also, it takes great group photo afterwards...one of my collateral duties as a volunteer...
Back on point, the total distance is manually toted using the stamps in the passport to trace your progress along each Camino route. The staff references the table of the starting and ending points of each segment to obtain or calculate subtotals for each segment. They then add the subtotal distances to get at the total creditable km to place on the Distance Certificate. This is very time-consuming.
As regards the starting point, it is customary to use the actual original starting point on the first segment / route.
So, for example, if you walked the Aragones to the Frances, Somport might be the starting point and Santiago the end point. The Distance certificate would list Somport as your starting point.
The total Km would be the km from Somport to Puente la Reina, PLUS the distance from Puente la Reina to Santiago. Easily understood I think.
These distance rarely change. Oddly, they DID change in 2017, over 2016, getting slightly longer. I was told that GPS was finally used to verify actual distances and the databases were updated.
The route followed on the Distance Certificate is a bit more problematic as the document is not designed to capture every nuance. There is space for one, maybe two routes but not for more. There are three variants I have seen over the years for handling this:
1. The first segment is used...
2. The last segment is used... or,
3. The segment comprising the majority of your distance is used.
Using the example above, the DC could state your route as Camino Aragones or
Camino Frances, starting at Somport.
It is an imperfect solution for a very rarely seen occurrence. Nearly all pilgrims do only one route, a portion of one route.
Only a
very small percentage like one or two percent, do a compound Camino comprised of segments from two or more routes. Usually this is the Primitivo and Frances, Oviedo and Frances, or Norte and Frances, or Aragones and Frances, etc.
Finally, an über tiny number of pilgrims each year do the wacky, obsessive multiple segment Caminos as described above. I am NOT being critical. The number is so small as to be handled according to the basic rules I mentioned above. Whether you did two Camino routes or twenty, the office staff would still seek to apply the rules as I explained.
This latter point about OCD made, I readily admit that I am in awe of those of you who do this. I would LOVE to be permitted to remain in Europe long enough to do this sort of thing for months on end. But, sigh, I am married, and have filial responsibilities to elderly parents.
Also, being from the US, I would need a long-stay visa to be able to remain in the Schengen zone for more than 90 calendar days in any 180 day period, a sliding 6-month window...
I hope this helps.
In 2015 I walked SJPdP to Santiago, but chose to bus from Burgos to Leon as I had not planned my flights well on that first Camino and wanted to spend my last week on the coast, so this certificate meant alot to me although it still sits rolled up in the tube after all these months.
