Walking the Camino de Santiago (Paperback)

~ Bethan Davies (Author), Ben Cole (Author) "Background information about the camino, walking, geography, food & drink, history and the arts..." (more)
Key Phrases: previous map page, next map page, municipal albergue, Santo Domingo, Cordillera Cantábrica, Calle Mayor (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Follow in the footsteps of Celts and Christians on an ancient pilgrimage route across northern Spain from St-Jean-Pied-de-Port in the foothills of the French Pyrenees to the cathedral city of Santiago de Compostela and on to Finisterre. This guide helps you to stay on track with step-by-step instructions, detailed sketch maps and profile charts. Walking the Camino de Santiago lets you into Spain's cultural and culinary secrets, includes a detailed, illustrated wildlife section, and gives you all the practical information you need for a hassle-free pilgrimage.

About the Author

Bethan Davies is a librarian and former editor who co-authored Walking Portugal with Ben Cole.

Ben Cole has worked in travel bookshops for more than a decade, traveled extensively in Spain and Portugal and has hiked all over the globe.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Pili Pala Press (January 3, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 097316980X
• ISBN-13: 978-0973169805
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,099,829 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Still Excellent - leaner, improved 2nd edition with better maps, updated accomodations, May 7, 2003

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

This 2006 new edition of Walking the Camino de Santiago is now 7 ounces and 182 pages easy to read, fact filled guide with sketch maps, elevation profiles, and something about the history, and the flora and fauna of the trail. It covers the trail from St. Jean-Pied-de-Port near the French border to Santiago de Compostela and on to Finisterre.

Walking the Camino de Santiago is a route oriented guide. It does have information on where to stay, but most of the text is still on what happens in between places to stay. You get a flavor of recent and ancient history as well as current conditions.

The original sketch maps have been augmented with more comments, symbols showing vegetation, revised symbols - overall easier to look at. The accomodation list has been updated, so for the moment is reliable. Refugios appear and disappear, so in 2007 and beyond you will still need to supplement this with more current information, either from the internet or the current Confraternity of St. James guide below.

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. A very brief guide is the Camino chapter out of the Lonely Planet's Walking guide to Spain - about 35 pages.

I definitely recommend Walking the Camino de Santiago for anyone starting at St. Jean or in Spain. I still say that getting the current confraternity guide is mandatory, because it gives you a great level of comfort about how far, what to expect, and cost of the next place with food and/or shelter.

If a pilgrim starts in Le Puy en Velay, then Alison Raju's the Way of St. James: Le Puy to the Pyrenees would have to be used until you reach St. Jean. It is a more terse, difficult to read guide than the Davies and Cole guide.

We had a difficult time finding information on the Camino before doing it in 2001. Now there is a lot of info on the web - just check the online forums of gocamino or santiagobis or google for camino santiago, or even backpack45 and you will get a wealth of information.

When it comes to what guides to carry, my recommendations have not changed. Always carry the Confraternity guide and either this guide (Davies and Cole) or the John Brierley guide. For before the trip reading, the large Gitlitz and Davidson's The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago gives you more than you may want to read on the history of the route. Also read some of the personal experience books such as Susan Alcorn's Camino Chronicle: Walking to Santiago, or Joyce Rupp's Walk in a Relaxed Manner: Life Lessons from the Camino.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent aid for a Camino de Santiago hiker, October 18, 2004

By	Old Grumbler "Curmudgeon" (Canada) - See all my reviews

Contrary to what one often reads at various Internet group sites, the Camino Frances is just a long dirt track with occasional climbs, not difficult to walk for an average hiker, and very well marked throughout its circa 780-kilometers-long course. As such, a topographical guide to it is not really necessary. Just the same, the Davies and Cole book is pure fun to read - I mean especially the sections about the Camino flora and fauna, as well as the general remarks at the beginning of the volume. If one really needs directions, these are given in a down-to-earth, practical way. The guide is rather short on cultural info, therefore it should be used in conjunction with the Gitlitz/Davidson volume. Of course, the yearly Confraternity of St. James' practical pilgrim guide is a must for any hiker planning to do this route. On the other hand, if you'll find the Camino Frances overcrowded, often sightseeing-unfriendly and too touristy (as I did in 2003), you should buy another excellent guide by Ben Cole and Bethan Davies, "Walking the Via de la Plata", written in the same utilitarian format, and follow this longer but less-trodden path to Compostela.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific guidebook-- funny and smart., October 15, 2004

By	C. Gilbert "frumiousb" (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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Excellent guide for the English-speaker walking the Spanish Camino. Davies and Cole balance wealth of information with the obvious weight restrictions to come up with a book which was helpful, interesting, and often very funny. The remarks about the towns and the available Auberges were so helpful that pilgrims of other nationalities walking the camino at the same time as I would often make a point of asking me what my book said about what they could expect in the day ahead.

I also appreciated the advice on the special things to do and see. The Best of the Camino list was right on target and we were very pleased on the occasions when we took this "best of" advice.

As the book was written in 2003 and a great deal was changed on the Camino for the Jamesian Year in 2004, I recommend annotating your copy with updates which can be found at the publisher web site.