The Way of st James: Le Puy to Santiago : A Walker's Guide (A Cicerone Guide) [Paperback]

Alison Raju (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2001 | Series: A Cicerone Guide

A walker's guide to the Pilgrim Road from Le Puy-en-Velay in southwestern France to Santiago de Compostela. As well as giving walking directions, the book also provides information on places to visit along the way, the history of the pilgrimage and details on facilities such as shops and bars.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Cicerone Pr Ltd; 2nd edition (September 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1852842717
• ISBN-13: 978-1852842710
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,049,309 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good overall guide for the pilgrim doing the 'whole' camino, January 4, 2002

By 

Norman Bone (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Way of st James: Le Puy to Santiago : A Walker's Guide (A Cicerone Guide) (Paperback)

This book became well worn from being used several times a day on our 68 day Camino. It is a nice pocket-size with lots of background info as well as route descriptions.
If you are only doing the Spanish portion (Camino Frances route) you might feel that this book is not necessary but if you are starting in Le Puy it will be helpful. Since any book on the Camino will be outdated as soon as it is printed, I would suggest that you also carry the supplemental guides from the Confraternity of St James, since they are updated every year.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Do not get this if you walk only the last 300 km or less, September 3, 2001

By 

V.R (Europe) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Way of st James: Le Puy to Santiago : A Walker's Guide (A Cicerone Guide) (Paperback)

This book may be usefull if you walk all the way from St. Jean or Le Puy, but I doubt that. I walked from Astorga to Santiago 7/2001 and had this book with me, but found it quite useless and outdated and I was not the only one with this opinion in the camino (my book was printed in 2000). Raju's book is consists mostly of route descriptions, but today the yellow arrows are very good in Castille and Galicia and it is quite difficult to get lost and fountains are also easy to find.
I needed the info in this book only once during my trip and even then only to choose between two alternative routes.
The book does not have info on refugios which would be really important and also very little about history of the towns in the route which would be interesting.
If you have this book I recommend reading it before you go or just copying the pages you think you need. The only book I can warmly recommend taking with you is the annually published quide of Confraternity of St James. It is light and up to date.
Ultreia!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Compact English language guide for Le Puy to Roncevalles, May 19, 2003

By 

Timecheck "backpack45.com - Camino Chronicle... (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Way of st James: Le Puy to Santiago : A Walker's Guide (A Cicerone Guide) (Paperback)

Best used as a supplement to the Confraternity of St. James guides. I don't know of another compact guide to the Le Puy to Roncevalles part of the trip to Santiago. It's abbreviations such as L for left, R for right, etc. make it terse and not smooth reading, but it saves on total book size, and weight is important to the Camino walker. This is a 1999 guide, so now getting a little dated.

Once you hit the border of Spain, more recent guides such as Davies and Cole's Walking the Camino de Santiago become available.

On all parts of the Camino, if English is your first language, it is essential to get the corresponding Confraternity of St. James guide books. Do a web search on camino santiago or confraternity, or even backpack45 and they should pop up.