Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela

[omar504]

I thought it might be useful to share opinions on the various guide books available. I will put my 2 bobs worth in by commenting on the VDLP route. The 2 main (only?) guides are the Alison Raju and Cole/davies books. This route is now very well marked and I have heard of someone who walked without any guide. I don't recommend this as there are times when the arrows are not too evident or through towns. The Raju book is compact durable but now includes starting from Granada as an alternative to seville. This adds to the weight of the book. The Cole/Davies book is larger and has the advantage of depicting elevations-the raju book does indicate elevations between points but it's good to see a diagramme.
I found myself using the raju book more than the other.
My question is about the french way-I gather I could just follow the hordes and not need a guide book but would previous walkers of this route advise the Raju or Brierley book. The latter book has good reviews on Amazon but looks pretty hefty at 320 pages.
Any suggestions?

[michael]

Can’t believe I just did this but I weighed a CSJ CF paperback (2005) against a VDP Cicerone. Not a ‘like for like’ in terms of subject.
CSJ=175gms against Cicerone 375gms.
On the principle that ‘time spent on reconnaissance is never wasted’ use the CSJ for day to day route information and do all the research in advance regarding anything of interest that you might want to make a detour to see. The CSJ is pretty good at pointing out things of interest one or two pages of notes might be preferable to another whole book.
As regards elevations I got my passport from Les Amis du Chemin de St. Jaques in SJPdP and they gave me an A4 sheet with 34 daily distance/elevation diagrams on it.
You can download http://www.aucoeurduchemin.org/spip/IMG ... s_voir.pdf


Regards
michael

[spursfan]

I brought both the Brierley (the second edition is somewhat lighter than the first) and CSJ guide on the Camino Frances - the former for the detailed maps of both route and villages/towns and distances and the latter for facilities along the way (shops and preferred albergues) - though I did not take the covers just the pages I needed and threw away the pages (apart from the single page for each leg from Brierley) as I went

[chrissy]

I have had a big book, the way of st james which is one published in several languages. I copied out the pages I needed for the leg. Sadly, I could not locate it for the second time. As there was not much time to get shop around for the second time I purchased a lonely planet book. I stopped by in Leon before going to Astorga for the start. In Leon I got a DINA4 sheet with all the essentials, list of places, their distances and the facilities available. On the back was a profile. That was sufficient to do the walk. I also found some little guide books and maps from Castille, Leon and Galicia free from local authorities.

[Guest]

I'm visual + have a hard time with detailed, "busy," maps. I like to have brief descriptions of the places I pass through to help me decide where and for how long I'd like to stay and visit, or not. Also, I like to have roads divided into "suggested" etapas, distances, etc., so that I can decide what etapas I'd like walk. I also like to keep my guidebooks as mementos of my caminos. There's no perfect guidebook. Changes, particularly in facilities like albergues, happen often, another reason for which I like to "invest" in an "updated" guidebook every time I walk the Roads. Also, there's not one guidebook that am aware of that covers all Roads to St James-it'd be kinda heavy to carry on a backpack (though it would make a nice reference book). So far, the Spanish-language guidebook published by "El Pais/Aguilar," has met up to the above. So far. Hope it doesn't change its format. Best, xm

[Rebis]

My question is about the french way-I gather I could just follow the hordes and not need a guide book but would previous walkers of this route advise the Raju or Brierley book. The latter book has good reviews on Amazon but looks pretty hefty at 320 pages.
Any suggestions?

There is actually another Davies/Cole guide to the Camino Frances, and it has already gone into the second edition ("Walking the Camino de Santiago", ISBN 0-9731698-2-6, can be purchased directly from the publisher at http://www.pilipalapress.com.)

[evanlow]

It's tough to choose between the extra weight and the convenience of have the extra information at hand. Every pilgrim have to sort this out their own way.

If you are doing the french route, I recommend also to check out the MSN camino user group site.

http://groups.msn.com/ElCaminoSantiago

It's got everything, including elevation maps you can print out. Maybe that would help you decide better which combination of books, printouts, etc. to carry.

Buen Camino.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDqpuCwqzTc

[Kunno]

I will put my 2 bobs worth in by commenting on the VDLP route. The 2 main (only?) guides are the Alison Raju and Cole/davies books. This route is now very well marked and I have heard of someone who walked without any guide.

A very good alternative guide that describes the VDLP (incl. Camino Sanabrès) is the one that is published by the "Asociación de Amigos del Camino de Santiago de Sevilla". There is a description of every stage with a map and an elevation diagram. It gives brief info about services you find in the villages you pass through and info about the albergues.
The first pages contain the changes of the guide.