Starting to question whether Frances Route is right for me!?

[DjennyHeart]

Hi,

I have been researching, dreaming, planning for a spring 2013 camino for almost a year now...
But I am starting to question whether the Frances route is the right one for me.

Why I am questioning:

1. I dislike rain (perhaps spring anywhere is rainy?)
2. I want a more solitary experience

However, I have heard from so many people that they recommend the Frances route to first time pilgrims, and much about it does sound wonderful... perhaps this is what they call the "first camino panic attack"? :shock:
I keep thinking that the Via De La Plata or perhaps the Portugues way may be more to my liking... But perhaps I should stick to the original plan and do Frances???

I will start my Camino around March 21st and have 2 months to finish... any suggestions or feedback is welcome.

 

[Deleted member 3000]

It will rain anywhere in Spain. The rain is not saved for the Camino Frances!

No one can decide for you the best camino for you. Stages are longer and accommodations less frequent on all the other routes. Alone on them can mean completely alone, sometimes for days at a time. If you Spanish is good, that may not be a problem. If it is not, you may find it very frustrating.

You will have plenty of time to yourself even when the Camino Frances is busy. Being with other pilgrims in the evening is one of the best parts of the Camino, even for those who are looking for solitude.

 

[AJ]

You will have plenty of time to yourself even when the Camino Frances is busy. Being with other pilgrims in the evening is one of the best parts of the Camino, even for those who are looking for solitude.

I agree with this. You can be alone even when the camino is crowded.

Having said that, I am a big fan of the VdlP.

 

[tyrrek]

Look into the other longer routes like the Norte, which sound like they might be more to your taste. I've never done it so can't advise.

You could even combine routes and walk part of the Frances, onto Finisterre/Muxia, the Camino Ingles etc. Best of all worlds!

Buen Camino!

 

[julie]

When we hear about the Camino for the first time, it is usually in the context of the Camino Frances. Given that you've already spent a year researching it, you may feel like it is unfinished business if you switch to another route. Only you can decide that.

If asked, I recommend this route for a first-timer because it has the infrastructure and you are guaranteed to have the support of being amongst other pilgrims.

Most of us don't know whether we are capable of walking every day for weeks on end nor do we know how many kilometres a day is our preferred average. It is not until we do it the first time that we understand our preferences and capabilities.

The Camino Frances supports our differences because there are regular albergues so we are not committed to having to walk long distances if it doesn't suit our style of walking.

Although it is the most popular route, I did not find it difficult to walk alone. Sometimes I would walk with someone for an hour or so and at other times I simply said that I needed to walk alone. It was never an issue.

The weather is something that nobody can guarantee. Given the distance and the time involved in walking any of the pilgrim routes, you would be incredibly lucky not to strike rain. I've found that it just doesn't matter. Going on pilgrimage is such an introspective experience that your thoughts can be more difficult to cope with than either the walking or the weather.

It is absolutely normal to start questioning. Possibly you'll start out, as I did, with the "what on earth am I doing here?" idea but it soon passes.

 

[FrancesK]

I have been researching, dreaming, planning for a spring 2013 camino for almost a year now...
But I am starting to question whether the Frances route is the right one for me.

What drew you to walking the Camino Frances in the first place? If, like me, you were called to do it, then you should stick with your original plan. Why? because perhaps those issues you've raised such as rain and lack of solitude are exactly the reasons you are meant to face whilst on the Camino.

Just my two cents

 

[katiawt]

You will have plenty of time to yourself even when the Camino Frances is busy. Being with other pilgrims in the evening is one of the best parts of the Camino, even for those who are looking for solitude.

I agree with this. You can be alone even when the camino is crowded.

Having said that, I am a big fan of the VdlP.

Can you say more about beeing fan of the via de la plata???

 

[jpflavin1]

Djennyheart:

I am not sure what you do or do not like so it is difficult to determine which of the routes would/would not be more to your liking.

1. You dislike rain.
2. You want a solitary experience.

That said, I would almost always recommend the Camino Frances for a first Camino. Mainly because of the infrastructure and support for walkers. If you have never walked this type of distance before, I believe these aspects of the Frances will be beneficial to you at sometime.

You are planning to walk in March, my favorite time to walk. There will be fewer Pilgrims at this time of year. Approximately 10-20 people leaving SJPdP per day versus hundreds per day in the Summer months. Enough people that you will never be totally alone but you should not have to ever race for a bed. You should be able to walk pretty much alone each day. Yet, if something did happen along the way, it would not be to long before someone came by. Two additional items worthy of comment. You will be walking during Easter week so there will be an influx of Spanish walkers at this time. These numbers will dissipate after Easter. Not all Albergues will be open. Check with Albergue in SJPdP for information.

Weather is another issue. It is unlikely that you could walk any of the Camino's without having some rainy days. Another reason why I believe the Frances is a better choice. The infrastructure provides more frequent shelters and stops than some of the less traveled Camino's.

If you do choose a Camino less traveled, being able to speak Spanish is a benefit.

Two months is more than adequate to walk any of the Camino's. The first day out of SJPdP will be a long one with Orisson being closed. Start slow, pack light and let the Camino be your guide.

Hope this helps.

Ultreya,
Joe

 

[Deleted member 3000]

You will be starting before one of the better albergues is open:

L’Esprit du Chemin
40, rue de la Citadelle
64220 St-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France
tel. +33 (0)5 59 37 24 68
info@espritduchemin.org
open: 29 March - 28 September
stay: 8 €
dinner: 9 € (incl. wine)
breakfast: 3 € packed lunch: 3 €

The Pilgrim Office in SJPdP will have a lot of information, but may not know which albergues are open and which are closed. Many are closed until Easter Week or April 15.

 

[Luka]

You will have plenty of time to yourself even when the Camino Frances is busy. Being with other pilgrims in the evening is one of the best parts of the Camino, even for those who are looking for solitude.

I agree with this. You can be alone even when the camino is crowded.

However I haven't been on the Camino Frances yet, I don't agree with you both. I have quite some experience with solitude, because I walked from Amsterdam to Le Puy (in different stages). I also walked for two days on the Le Puy route and found it a completely different experience. I was walking a bit faster than most of the others, so I was greeting and having chitchats with other pilgrims for every 10 or 15 minutes or so when passing by. Same on arrival, always people around me. No misunderstanding: I liked meeting fellow pilgrims and not eating alone, but I found it a completely diffent experience from being on your own for days. A circumstance I think is necessary for really experiencing the hard and wonderful things of solitude.

 

[AJ]

I liked meeting fellow pilgrims and not eating alone, but I found it a completely diffent experience from being on your own for days. A circumstance I think is necessary for really experiencing the hard and wonderful things of solitude.

I was completely alone on the Via Francigena for the first 900 km. I met my first pair of pilgrims at the hospice at St Bernard's Pass.

Likewise between Sarzana and Arles.

 

[peregrino_tom]

Mmmm, well I'll throw in my three ha'pence worth too

Case for the VDlP:
you've got two whole months, so make the most of it, do the whole VdlP and go on to Muxia and Finisterre and you'd probably still have time to walk back along the Frances through all of Galicia. And if a lonely adventure is your bag, take the VdlP variant that clips over the Portuguese border and comes back via Verin. I've only come across two people who've done that.
I think the VdlP experience is more like a relationship with the land - from the plain to the plateau to the hills and then the mountains and what someone described to me as touching a bit of espana profundo.

Case for the Frances:
You probably can find aloneness if you really want to, but there's a great pleasure in this camino in meeting people from all walks of life and all over the world. And most of you will be first-timers so you'll help each other to get through the whole business, supporting each other when adversity and low morale strikes and in turn being supported - often quite unexpectedly and wonderfully - by others.
The other unique thing about the Frances is the way that it becomes a channel for people to express themselves - they leave signatures, mementos, shrines, icons, messages in stones on the path. This is largely absent form the other caminos. These messages, intended for you as the passing pilgrim, support and ferment a camino mythology which is probably 75% bulls**t, but contains a 5% kernel of great wisdom, that it is up to you to uncover - if you are open to it.

Finally just to say, I remember when I first joined this forum reading a fantastic post from someone who'd met a pilgrim who was always incredibly anxious - concerned that if there were two albergues in a village, or three bars, how would he know which was best - how could he know that if he went to one albergue he wasn't missing the definitive camino albergue experience across the street? and this preoccupied him day after day. There are hundreds, thousands of incredible caminos running side by side all the time - even as you read this. There's no best option - it's always what you make of it. So make your decision, take either way and don't look back.

 

[DjennyHeart]

What an inspiring group of people on this forum

Thank you everyone.

I feel like these comments are just what I needed to take a step back from my pre-camino anxiety... and remember that no matter what I choose I will be making the Right Choice... and it is what I do with that choice that matters.

I am going to sleep on it for now, I have a ticket to Paris... and plenty of time... so I will see where my heart takes me.

Thanks Again to everyone,
Buen Camino
Jenny.

 

[Rebekah Scott]

Start on the Frances and walk a few days. Then decide if it is to your taste. If you don´t like it, get on a bus or train and start up on another trail. There are many, many caminos de santiago. Only some of them are waymarked.

 

[peregrino_tom]

It looks like this thread is done and dusted - job done, move on to the next..
but I just wanted to add a little postscript. When I contributed late on Friday night I was in the process of polishing off the xmas port. In the cold light of day I have been feeling a bit guilty about naysaying the camino mythology.
This morning I was freed of the usual family commitments and decided to tackle an immense pile of paper that has been growing for many months. I found a couple of stray items that needed to go back in the camino box, including the brochure for the Iglesia de Santa Maria Tabara and its famous scriptorium by Magius of the Beatus (enough mythology in there to fill a university department and several novels) and a faded photocopied A4 sheet of the Prayer of La Faba. I have no idea how this came into my possession. So I did a search of this board's threads and came up with something last added to in 2008 called 'The Inner Journey'.
miscellaneous-topics/topic3417.html
This explains that Forum member Deirdre saw the original Spanish version on the wall of the Iglesia de San Andrés in La Faba and photgraphed it and superimposed the words onto a photo and also translated it. I have no idea whether I have the first version or the version that Deirdre created and no idea how it has come to be sitting in a pile of paper in my front room. But it seems to fit in pretty well on this thread (even if we go our separate ways at the last stanza)
Buen camino, tom

Although I may have traveled all the roads,
crossed mountains and valleys from East to West,
if I have not discovered the freedom to be myself,
I have arrived nowhere.

Although I may have shared all of my possessions
with people of other languages and cultures;
made friends with Pilgrims of a thousand paths,
or shared albergue with saints and princes,
if I am not capable of forgiving my neighbor tomorrow,
I have arrived nowhere.

Although I may have carried my pack from beginning to end
and waited for every Pilgrim in need of encouragement,
or given my bed to one who arrived later than I,
given my bottle of water in exchange for nothing;
if upon returning to my home and work,
I am not able to create brotherhood
or to make happiness, peace and unity,
I have arrived nowhere.

Although I may have had food and water each day,
and enjoyed a roof and shower every night;
or may have had my injuries well attended,
if I have not discovered in all that the love of God,
I have arrived nowhere.

Although I may have seen all the monuments
and comtemplated the best sunsets;
although I may have learned a greeting in every language
or tried the clean water from every fountain;
if I have not discovered who is the author
of so much free beauty and so much peace,
I have arrived nowhere.

If from today I do not continue walking on your path,
searching for and living according to what I have learned;
if from today I do not see in every person, friend or foe
a companion on the Camino;
if from today I cannot recognize God,
the God of Jesus of Nazareth
as the one God of my life,
I have arrived nowhere.

 

[mmm042]

Just one little comment on a comment. I recently came back from the VDLP; I've been walking it annually since 2009. I noticed a marked increase in pilgrim "messages" left everywhere, and via very creative means. My favorite was a note in marker on a bleached cattle skull! Ha! So those things aren't just found on the Frances.

Melanie