For many people the pilgrimage to Santiago is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, especially if we travel halfway around the world to get to Spain, so many of us that start out at the typical starting points together will begin our walk along the Camino as beginners! I was drawn to a route that I'd come to understand through my reading was very traditional, the
Camino Frances. Although I was aware that people returned to the various Camino routes again and again, I thought that my circumstances might only allow me to do this journey once in my life so I wanted to walk the
Camino Frances beginning in St Jean Pied de Port. In spite of my pre-Camino plans to walk shorter daily distances, I got caught up in a group that adhered to the "
Brierley stage" model. These people were a lovely "Camino family" for me to have but their endurance and goals turned out to be more ambitious than I could keep up with. It took several days of pushing myself too hard and then lagging behind before I found my own Camino pace which was slower than that of most people, although occasionally I would meet pilgrims from earlier on who had also found a slower pace to be better or who were taking a rest day or were recovering from assorted maladies. I stayed at many lovely albergues between the "official stops" along the route. I wish I'd listened to the advice of the policeman in SJPP in the movie, "The Way," who recommends that Martin Sheen's character take 60 days to walk to Santiago. My vacation time did not stretch to walking all of the Camino in one go; however, to my enormous delight, after the train ride to Sarria where I began walking the final stretch (and completed it in seven days) I encountered many of the people I'd bonded with in Orisson, Roncesvalles and Zubiri and at many other points along the way. During my 2-1/2 days in Santiago I met up with many people I'd met along every part of the way including my first day en route to my overnight at Orisson. Having been there and walked about 5/8 of the route from SJPP to Santiago, that is the one I recommend for a first timer. In reading accounts of people walking the other routes, lack of amenities and less direction signs, larger distances between places and less fellow pilgrims make them less appealing to me. Also I believe in making a reservation if possible for the next night's bed, especially if your arrival time will be later than noon during peak seasons. Also, I can't stress strongly enough about finding your own pace and making the pilgrimage your own and walking shorter daily distances, even if your new friends are bound and determined to do it at a more rapid pace. Prior to my trip to Spain to walk the Camino in Sept-Oct 2013 it never occurred to me that I'd ever contemplate going back there to continue walking. My revised bucket list now includes returning to the
Camino Frances to walk the parts that I missed out on my first time when I moved ahead by bus or train.
waves of pilgrims during that period.
