Camino Francés
In June my wife and I decided to do 126km+ on the Camino Francés as part of our trip to Europe. As someone who backpacks a lot in Canada, the Camino could not be more different. I’ll hike up mountains with my backpack and see no-one for a day, my only company being mosquitoes and bears. The Camino is almost the exact opposite.
And that was exactly why we decided to go for it, if you are unsure if a long multi day hike is for you - the Camino provides plenty of support systems. You can just hop in a taxi or bus between towns. You can send your baggage along to each hostel so you don’t have to carry it. There’s tons of places to stop and eat. Those things don’t happen in the backcountry of Canada when you are 50km away from a cell phone signal or a road 😀
For this trip we didn’t book accomodation ahead, other than the first night because we were unsure how far we’d get each day. We were in Europe for a longer trip, so we divided our luggage into a 40L and 60L backpack. We then shipped the 60L onto Santiago de Compostela for pickup whenever we got there using the Spanish post office. That meant we just had a 40L backpack for our 6 day trip.
Day 1: Sarria 👉 Portomarin
We started out a little late and got a little lost in Sarria trying to find the Pilgrim Passport, but got this figured out and stamped.
This turned out to be the quietest section of the Camino for us, a lot of people start in Portomarin, since 100km is now the shortest distance to obtain a certificate and Portomarin is 100km away from Santiago de Compostela.
The Camino is a combination of roads and tracks. Whenever you meet someone on the trail you call out “Buen Camino” and it took a while on the first day to get the hang of that. This was a hot day and the last few km were a real drag heading down into Portomarin. Unfortunately in the last 8km we didn’t really spot much accomodation choices so continuing onto Portomarin became our goal.
Portomarin was crowded and almost everywhere was full. While my wife had a rest, I went around to so many places looking for a spare bed. One of the first hotels had one room left, but was super expensive. After going to at least more than a dozen places that were full, we gave up and got the expensive room.
Dinner was a bit of a miss that night, but we were both tired after the heat so we didn’t care too much. By this point I’d learnt:
- as someone who doesn’t drink alcohol Spain does excellent non-alcholoic beers
- as someone who doesn’t eat meat, your eating out options are very limited in Spain
Some blisters were starting to form.
Day 2: Portomarin 👉 Palas de Rei
This day had a bit more of an elevation change and was also hot. There were a lot of people leaving Portomarin in the morning. Something of a theme, people stay in the same place and all leave around the same time as they work their way along the trail. That means cafes and rest spots along the trail tend to get busy in waves as people arrive.
Although we weren’t the fastest, we weren’t the slowest and the crowds would usually thin throughout the day somewhat. Sometimes we were on quiet stretches, sometimes it got quite busy.
Given the struggles finding a spot to sleep yesterday, we booked a spot ahead of time. Silly me booked for a place that’s not in the middle of town though and is roughly a 15 EUR taxi ride out of town. Oops. Silly mistake, but it was quiet and had good food. But another nice feature of the trail, there’s lots of accomodations somewhere nearby and for this stretch there are so many people on it that there is a huge support system there for you.
We spoke to lots of people on this hike, which is nice and part of it’s charm. This night we chatted to a person from Montreal who was doing the same distance as us. A couple from Australia who’d come from the French border and had been going for a couple of weeks. And a lady who’d come from La Frézelle, France and had been on the go for over two months to complete the roughly 1,500km+ trip 😱
My wife was getting a bad blister. Two long days in hot sun had left us drained.
Day 3: Palas de Rei 👉 Melide
The weather wasn’t as hot today and my shoulders were sore from a backpack I’m not used to. We’d decided to set our sets on a shorter day and booked a spot in Melide.
Again there were swarms of people leaving Palas de Rei and the beginning was very busy, but as usual thinned out. Parts of the Spanish countryside were lovely and we were really enjoying the tracks, trees and trails. It’s well sign posted all the way and you’ll have to work hard to get lost.
Melide was a good distance for us, but turned out to not have great restaurant or hotel choices compared to other places.
Blisters were still there, although mine were starting to toughen up.
Day 4: Melide 👉 Arúza
This was another shorter day of about 15km to help us recover from the first couple of days. Interestingly staying at Melide had meant that we’d not stayed in accomodation where most people stop. That meant that it was quieter for much of our walk as we were out of sync with others. Until we hit a group of school children who got off a bus and are rather chatty and loud 😢
Arúza is a nice town with some a nice church and some good cafes, we had a great pizza in an Italian restaurant. Our hotel also had a great view across the fields.
We got some stuff to help the blister in a pharmacy.
Day 5: Arúza 👉 O Pedrouzo
O Pedrouzo was actually going to be our first and only stop in a hostel, staying in bunk beds. As opposed to hotels which we’d been in since then. This is a popular place to stop as it’s about 20km walk from here to the destination.
Although people of ages were staying at the hostel in the bunk beds - people in the hotels had bags (often suitcases) shipped on by a service and were older. The hostel had more young people with backpacks. The Camino is for pilgrims of all ages and gets lots of tourists who want support. It has religious people for whom the pilgrimage is important and people who don’t care for religion but like a good hike (that’s me).
At the end of this 19km segment, I felt like I had quite a bit of pent up energy and was feeling better after 2 long days in the sun at the beginning of the week. So I got a nice 4.20km run with a fast pace after the hike which was good.
Finally had a vegetarian paella for dinner.
Day 6: O Pedrouzo 👉 Santiago de Compostela
A lovely day that started out cloudy, keeping us nice and cool. I thought it would be a bit wierd walking around the airport, but apart from one bit close to the runway it was a lovely walk through fields.
We’d gotten a hotel right on the trail in town about 800m away from the destination. But the walk in through Santiago is long and at one point my wife was limping really badly from blisters and really just done with it. An old lady said “You’ve been walking too much” at my wife and that’s pretty much how she felt at that point.
We dropped our bag at the hotel and carried on into Santiago to go see the cathedral and the end point for the pilgrammage. It’s an impressive cathedral that’s for sure. It’s probably got more power for religious people, for me it was just endpoint, an impressive one admittedly.
The blister on my wifes foot was horrid by this point.
The next day we got our certificates of the pilgramage and was able to spend a bit more time exploring the cathedral, it’s grounds and the old city in general.
This was by far the longest multi-day hike my wife has done. It’s also the longest I’ve done (previous record the West Coast trail at 75km or so) but I’m more used to walking long distances.
I’m super proud of her having the courage to give it a go and sticking with it, even when she was in clear pain at the end.
It’s so very different from hiking in Canada. Walking between small town, after small town with little churches and cafes dotted around is just not an experience I get much. It’s not wilderness backpacking, that’s for sure.
I would do it again, but I would be hesitant about the last few days of the Camino Francés because it’s so busy. About 70% of pilgrims do that section and in the busy months, it’s very busy.
But the good news is there are many routes. How about the route from Lisbon through Portugal, or from Seville north through Spain, or from Biarritz along the coast, or from the Pyrennes…. these all sound fantastic and I could happily do those if I have the chance.
