Advice needed please, Ponferrada-Santiago or Sarria-Finisterre

[evita]

Hi, i hope someone can give me any advice on this.
We are flying into Santiago Compostela on April 13, starting our walk from the next day we have 13 days for walking and flying back home from Santiago again. We are choosing between the routes of Ponferrada-Santiago (then mb bus to Finisterre) or starting in Sarria to Santiago and continue walking to Finisterre (+maybe Muxia), can anybody tell which one would be well more worth it? maybe the scenery or whatever else reasons. Just spill your opinion out please Maybe any other highly advisible choices?

Also a question, after arriving to Ponferrada or Sarria as a starting point can we spend the night in an albergue as piligrims directly or will we have to look for a hotel for the first night until we actually started walking and collecting the stamps?

As our walk ends around the Easter days (April 24-25th, flying home on 27th) does anybody have any advice on where would be the nicest place to spend the Easter days (we are practising Christians). Would Finisterre or Muxia serve good as a nice peaceful place for Easter with some church to check out with a service or maybe some other village/town with its own local traditions (that would be quite interesting to us) or is it the best to plan to be around in Santiago (which i asume would be really really crowded) during this time?

Please oh please share your thoughts and make our choice a little bit less painful

[HuskyNerd]

OK, I'm accepting your invitation to spill out my opinion . . .

I'd start in Ponferrada or Astorga (depending on your level of fitness) for a 10-day walk, arriving in Santiago on the day before Easter and enjoying Easter at the cathedral there -- if possible a little earlier to enjoy Good Friday services. The day after Easter I'd head out to Finisterre by bus and plan on an overnight, returning by bus the next day. Finisterre is lovely, but it's cold in the spring (and sometimes in the summer) and after seeing the lighthouse and having a great meal it's pretty quiet. Santiago, on the other hand, particularly at Easter, would be full of Holy Week pomp and circumstance. They do know how to throw a party in Santiago, and I just imagine that the Easter Vigil would be something to remember. I was there last year for St. James Day and it was nothing short of spectacular.

The value of starting at Ponferrada is that you can then enjoy the Bierzo region (Villafranca del Bierzo is one of my favorite Camino towns), and the views from O Cebreiro, along with the small Galician town of Triacastela and the interesting monastery at Samos. The walks are delightful and green and, to be honest, the last stretch from Sarria to Santiago is not that much fun. So to my mind it's better to have some of the "real" Camino to enjoy before reaching Santiago. If you're up for longer walks a start at Astorga gives you the climb up to Rabanal del Camino and its tiny monastery, the Cruce de Ferro (leaving your symbolic stone of sin is not a bad Lenten practice), and the picturesque towns of El Acebo and Molinaseca.

That's my opinion anyway. Buen camino ~
Sandy

[Leslie]

I would go for the Ponferrada start also - I just think it is a much better way to get the "feel" of the Camino rather than starting at Sarria - I am kind of down on the last 100km or so - it felt like two different walks to an extent.

[Pavel]

It depends on how you would like the pomp of Santiago mentioned by Sandy. If you dislike this, I would try Muxia or Finisterre (but that's mostly my guess, I didn't spend there enough time for better advice).
In spring, I would recommend you the Ponferrada option. If it was in summer, I would choose Finisterre, survive last, overcrowded stage and then enjoy places where the number of pilgrims ressembled Navarra or other early stages of Camino Francés. In spring, Galician Camino Francés is not so overcrowded and Camino de Fistera must be almost empty.