A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino de Santiago: Camino Frances - The French Way of St. James

• Paperback - 01 January, 2006 - Findhorn Press
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• By: John Brierley
• ISBN: 1844090698

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Reviews by readers

Excellent guide, with colored maps, photos, route elevation profiles, accomodations

The revised edition remains a fine guide and the weight has dropped from 15 oz to 10 oz, making it easier to carry. Mileage and refugio information have been brought up to date.

This guide is very pleasing to look at: glossy paper, colored photos almost every page, multicolor maps and trail profiles, parts of text set off by shading. It has the information the walker needs, where the refugios are, how many beds, alternate choices. There is an introductory section with introduction, overview, followed by planning and preparation information. The main body of the guide follows, organized in 33 stages where each stage corresponds to a typical day's travel. Each stage has a map and a trail profile.
The planning section is very useful - detailed equipment list, travel info, essential phrases in Spanish and a short history of the Camino
.
This guide also makes a serious effort to address the spiritual or inner path side of the journey. In addition to the map and profile, each stage begins with three paragraphs - the Physical Path - a narrative overview of the day's walk, the Mystic Path - to awaken you to the spiritual potential of the day's walk, and Personal Reflections - a quotation from the author's reflections. In each stage there is a page with blank lines for the walker to write in their own reflections. The mystic path, and blank reflections page didn't work for me, but that is personal preference.

For me, the colored maps, elevation profiles and photos are the strong points of the book.

The only real competition to this guide is Davies and Cole Walking the Camino de Santiago. Brierley's guide clearly beats the original Davies and Cole on appearance, and maps and profiles are much better. There is a new Davies and Cole that I have not seen yet. Either one will get you there. I'd buy each ahead of time and make your choice. In total trip expenses it's a minor cost, and both have information you will appreciate. Accomodations change from year to year, so also be sure to get the annual confraternity guide in the next paragraph.

When walking the Camino, the mandatory guide for English speakers is the Confraternity of St. James Pilgrim Guides to Spain I. The Camino Frances. This is a barebones 76 page guide focused on pilgrim food and shelter - how far is it, how many beds available, what does it cost. Supplementing this is the Camino chapter out of the Lonely Planet's Walking guide to Spain - about 35 pages. The Camino facilities change from year to year, and inevitably publications will have typos and errors of fact. Do not rely on just one guide, and do future pilgrims a favor by emailing the publication's website if you find errors in the text.

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