bjorgts
Active Member
- Time of past OR future Camino
- In Spain, France, Portugal, Germany since 2003
We walked this camino in April. Here comes some information (at last). We came from Levante and continued on this camino, 9 days from Zamora to Verin, from April 14th to 23rd.
We found this a very nice but strenuous camino. One of the best when it comes to the road itself; gravel roads, dirt roads, trails, almost no asphalt at all. Excellent! Very changing landscape. A lot of up and down, especially in the Portuguese section. Remote. We saw no other walkers.
Since we liked this camino, we found it sad that it had a disadvantage: The marking is not good enough. Some parts good. Some parts not adequate / proper, because the marks are in between the places where you have to choose this or that direction. Some parts have no marking at all.
The guide (Alison Raju 2005) from The Confraternity of Saint James is a good help, but not sufficient. The route has changed several places. For example, the guide describes much more walking on asphalt than the marked route has now. For the first time in my camino career I could not relay on guide and marking.
Fortunately, I had found the GPS tracks to “Bruno” (very precise, to trust). I had marked them on maps on my mobile-phone. With map, my position and the tracks of Bruno, we never had problems finding our way. Without this, we would have been in trouble several times.
The address to his blog: http://blogdibruno.blogspot.com/ . Scroll down to CAMINO PORTUGUES DE LA VIA DE LA PLATA, Zamora-Bragança-Verin, 05/06-2015. There you will find his GPS-tracks.
We stayed in some albergues and some Hostales. Two "challenges":
1: In Edral you stay in a day center for older people. You have the room on your own during the night. No beds, but sofas where you can manage. We found it admirable that they offer pilgrims this possibility year after year, and we were grateful. But the camino needs a different solution to the need for accommodation on this stage. “Walking into the lives of people” like this, was a bit invading.
2: Edral – Verin: We did some research to find a way to divide this stage. We found that Meson Muxia in Vilardevos had (good) rooms. When we were there, we were told that Vilardevos had an albergue (!). We had not found any information of this albergue.
Conclusion: I recommend this camino, but you need GPS-tracks. We had a great week! With better marking and a better solution for sleeping in the area near Edral, the number of walkers will increase.
When autumn comes, I will make a photo-video for YouTube.
I can give you more detailed information if somebody is interested.
We found this a very nice but strenuous camino. One of the best when it comes to the road itself; gravel roads, dirt roads, trails, almost no asphalt at all. Excellent! Very changing landscape. A lot of up and down, especially in the Portuguese section. Remote. We saw no other walkers.
Since we liked this camino, we found it sad that it had a disadvantage: The marking is not good enough. Some parts good. Some parts not adequate / proper, because the marks are in between the places where you have to choose this or that direction. Some parts have no marking at all.
The guide (Alison Raju 2005) from The Confraternity of Saint James is a good help, but not sufficient. The route has changed several places. For example, the guide describes much more walking on asphalt than the marked route has now. For the first time in my camino career I could not relay on guide and marking.
Fortunately, I had found the GPS tracks to “Bruno” (very precise, to trust). I had marked them on maps on my mobile-phone. With map, my position and the tracks of Bruno, we never had problems finding our way. Without this, we would have been in trouble several times.
The address to his blog: http://blogdibruno.blogspot.com/ . Scroll down to CAMINO PORTUGUES DE LA VIA DE LA PLATA, Zamora-Bragança-Verin, 05/06-2015. There you will find his GPS-tracks.
We stayed in some albergues and some Hostales. Two "challenges":
1: In Edral you stay in a day center for older people. You have the room on your own during the night. No beds, but sofas where you can manage. We found it admirable that they offer pilgrims this possibility year after year, and we were grateful. But the camino needs a different solution to the need for accommodation on this stage. “Walking into the lives of people” like this, was a bit invading.
2: Edral – Verin: We did some research to find a way to divide this stage. We found that Meson Muxia in Vilardevos had (good) rooms. When we were there, we were told that Vilardevos had an albergue (!). We had not found any information of this albergue.
Conclusion: I recommend this camino, but you need GPS-tracks. We had a great week! With better marking and a better solution for sleeping in the area near Edral, the number of walkers will increase.
When autumn comes, I will make a photo-video for YouTube.
I can give you more detailed information if somebody is interested.
