On the Camino

I know that before I walked of the things that I wondered about was what the albergues were like so, in an occasional series like the craft one, I will go through a few and write what I can remember about each. This is the albergue in St Jean Pied du Port (if you want to know what the outside looks like then it's where Martin Sheen goes to see the policeman in the middle of the night in 'The Way'). Beds are assigned by the Pilgrim office and I think it was 5 euros which included a donated breakfast from the local confraternity. The showers were nice and hot and there is a kitchen but it's not for Pilgrims to use, just the hospiteleros.

    Some cats we saw on our second day walking last year just outside a shop we'd stopped at to get a drink - they were singularly unimpressed with the cookies we'd brought from home! They did let us give them a bit of a fuss though before they decided that we weren't really worth the effort.

I've walked to Finisterre just once (although I have visited another time as well) in 2010 in the Jubilee year. I'd walked the Camino Frances in 2009 and had wanted to carry on to Finisterre but an injury had not made it possible so I convinced my Dad to walk to Finisterre with me before he walked any of the Frances (my sister would do that the next week from Sarria with the two of us). The books say it takes four days and a lot of people do it in three but we took five - we had no walking on the Camino behind us to build upon after all and six days before my sister was to join us. It rained constantly for all five of those days, water streaming down the paths but then when my sister came and met us in Santiago the sun never seemed to go away. The rain didn't matter though because Dad's been back on the Camino twice more and will come with me and my sister on the Camino Portuguese later this year. Here are the sellos for the Camino Finisterre: