Advice please

[Caminobd]

My group is planning to walk the El Camino next summer and are excited to say that the flights to London have been booked. Now we need to book cheap flights to the south of France. Does anyone have advice on flight carriers other than Ryanair. So far the next cheapest carrier is Easy Jet to Bourdeax and train to Biarritz,taxi to St jean. Easy jets flights to Biarritz don't start till later in July, too late for us.

We would like to arrive in France as close to the start of the Camino as possible as we want to cut down on travel time due to jet leg.
I would also greatly appreciate advice on cheap flights back to London from Santiago.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks

[HuskyNerd]

My group is planning to walk the El Camino next summer and are excited to say that the flights to London have been booked. Now we need to book cheap flights to the south of France. Does anyone have advice on flight carriers other than Ryanair. So far the next cheapest carrier is Easy Jet to Bourdeax and train to Biarritz,taxi to St jean. Easy jets flights to Biarritz don't start till later in July, too late for us.
We would like to arrive in France as close to the start of the Camino as possible as we want to cut down on travel time due to jet leg.
I would also greatly appreciate advice on cheap flights back to London from Santiago.

If EasyJet and RyanAir aren't available you can always fly into/out of Madrid. From Madrid you can take the train to Pamplona and a bus or van from there to St. Jean. From Santiago you can take the great night train to Madrid or a bus right to the Madrid airport. Also, there are lots of flights from Santiago to the Madrid airport (P.S. I haven't checked the websites myself, but make certain you're checking Stansted and Gatwick airports for flights, as well as Heathrow). Buen camino!

[Lipka149]

... we want to cut down on travel time due to jet lag.

If you are worried about jet lag, suggest you fly into London and spend the night. Take a day to get from London to St. Jean via Biarriitz/Bourdeax. Spend the night in St. Jean and start the next morning fresh.

Consider the negative effects of a missed connection/lost luggage/act of God that goofs up all your well laid plans. Better to give yourselves some wiggle room up front and ensure a good start !

Do the same going back. Santiago to London and spend the night before heading home. Having time to relax and not be pressured by tight deadlines is worth the $$$.

If you fly RyanAir, pay the extra few bucks to board first. Get in the right line and be there early. Take the exit seats if you carry your backpacks and do not check luggage. You can push them under the seat and still have plenty of leg room.

Remember the 9th Beatitude ... "Blessed are the flexible, for they will not get bent out of shape."

Just my 2 cents, having learned the hard way ... <sigh> ...

[Caminobd]

Thanks for the advice from both of you. We will definitely take this in to consideration. Love the 9th beatitude, quite apt in fact.
There is snow on the ground here this morning and the summer feels a long way off.

[Sil]

If there are more than 5 or 6 in your group you might have to think about alternative accommodation to the traditional pilgrim refuges. Many don't take groups but you can always book beds ahead at the private albergues. Pick up a list of accommodation and albergues in St Jean or find places in the Confraternity of St james of John Brierley guide book.

[Caminobd]

Again thanks for the advice. We are now booked for flights and got a great deal with good flight times into Bourdeaux from London and back to London through Madrid. We are so excited! There are only four of us and we thought that we would book the first few days of accommodation and then try the Refugios. We are hoping to get passports in St. Jean. We have all been able to get 40 days of leave from work and feel very blessed. I am sure at some point climbing the trail to Ronceville I might feel otherwise at times.

[Sil]

Walking with com-pan-eros can be very rewarding. But, friendship can be strained when four different people, with different walking paces and different expectations walk together for five or six weeks. Here is an excerpt from my book:

Before you go,agree on what kind of accommodation you will stay in and what you will budgetfor meals. Do you all want to stay in the smart, up-market, comfortablealbergues and eat out every night or do you want to try out the small, basicrefuges where communal cook-ups and sing-a-longs are tradition?
If you areplanning to walk with a group there are a few things you can do to minimise thedependence on each other and to ensure the camaraderie is retained. Ensure thateach group member is involved in the planning, the organisation and the dailyroutine of the walk.

· Don’tlet anyone say, ‘Just tell me where to goand I’ll follow you.’ Unless youwant to be a tour guide, this is not acceptable and they could blame you ifthey don’t enjoy the experience.
· Makecopies of guide book or maps and share them equally otherwise one person willbe left carrying the load and everyone will come to depend on that person forguidance.
· Withthree, four or more people all walking together with different fitness levelsand different ideas on when to start each day, how far to walk, how fast orslow, it will be difficult to satisfy everybody’s aspirations. Before you go,come to some agreement about the distance you will be walking each day.
· Bearin mind that there will be slow walkers, fast walkers and speed walkers. Youcan’t expect people to change their pace to suit each person in the group. Youshould agree that if one wants to walk ahead they can and if another wants todawdle along, she won’t mind always being at the back, as long as you all meetup at the same place at the end.
· Mostrefuges work on a first come first served basis and they can fill up quickly.If two or three arrive first they might get a bed but the rest of the groupmight not. What will you do in a case like this?
· Agree before hand on what to do if one person isinjured or falls ill. Is it going to be one-for-all and all-for-one or do youagree that the injured person catches a bus ahead and waits for everyone elseto catch up – or even goes home alone. Ditto if someone is ill: let them goahead a couple of days and meet up with the group later at a pre-arrangedvillage or town; or will everybody stay together and have a rest day until theill person is feeling better.

Have a groupmeeting each evening (over dinner is good) to share experiences and discussplans for the following day. Perhaps you areplanning a shorter day and can all get up half an hour later, or a longer dayand need to be up earlier. If you have pre-determined wake-up times, you won’thave to resent the lazy-bones who sleeps in late and keeps everyone waiting.
Agree to take itin turns to go shopping for provisions for the evening meal. Many refuges have kitchens and it will be afraction of the cost if you buy pasta or rice, vegetables and salad ingredientsand make your own meals.

Have a wonderful walk!
Sil

[Caminobd]

I tried the "quick reply" and as my iPad is touch sensitive I think it got posted before I finished my sentence. Thanks Sil for the advice, it is certainly a privilege to hear back from experienced walkers.

I have been planning, talking about this pilgrimage for about one and a half years and get hung up on the booking accom. Vs just taking the accomodation day by day. If we were to book private alberques a couple of days ahead while we are going along on the El Camino do you think that we would be successful in getting accomodation in July and August given how many other people go at this time? Or is it even workable to decide on the stops before hand based on the slowest, me and just go ahead and prebook soon?

Also, being Canadian with limited Spanish, how difficult will it be do you think to prebook?

Thanks again

[Sil]

Ooohh - decisions, decisions!
The short answer is have a plan in mind as to how far you want to walk each day, and then stop and find a place to stay.
But walking in August could be a bit a tricky accommodation wise. You shouldn't have any problems finding a place to stay in the bigger places - its the smaller places that might fill up quickly.
This year has been a surprise for many! It seems that large numbers of long-distance pilgrims stayed away last year (a Holy Year) fearing overcrowding and postponed their walk until this year. The result has been record numbers arriving in Santiago every month. Next year could be the same and with August being the traditional holiday month in Europe, colleges and schools are closed, you can expect huge numbers of pilgrims on the Camino Frances, especially from Sarria. Camino to Santiago de Compostela - Information and stories about the pilgrimage routes to Santiago.: News , numbers and gossip from Santiago

You must book a place in St Jean Pied de Port and at Orisson if you plan to stay there. At the end of August this year we walked from St Jean to Orisson. I had tried to book beds at Orisson 6 weeks in advance but they were fully booked. (They only have 18 beds). We found a Gite in St jean and spent two nights there - walking to Orisson and then getting a taxi back down the hill to the Gite after lucnch and up again the next day. Cost is €3 each way.
In Zubiri we met a woman who was desperate for somewhere to stay. The albergues and all the pensions and hotels were full. The fellow who owned the Pension where we were staying phoned Larrasoana but they were also fully booked. I think there was a festival on and everything was booked out. She ended up going back to Roncesvalles by taxi where I presume she found a place to sleep.
Use this website to plan your daily stages. You don't have to book ahead every day but it might be worth booking a few of the smaller places a few days in advance. www.godesalco.com/plan It starts from Roncesvalles but you can the day (or two) from St Jean to your itinerary.
I have walked to Santiago 6 times - have been turned away by 'COMPLETO' signs, slept on the floor, walked 40km on a number of occasions, have queued for the showers, toilets, washing facilities. The last two times I've booked beds ahead and I can't tell you what a difference it makes knowing that you have a bed and a hot shower waiting for you at the end of the day. You can get up late, take your time on the trail, have a leisurely lunch, spend time in churches and museums and arrive at your destination well into the afternoon. Private albergues are not really different to the church or municipal albergues. The only difference is that you can book a bed ahead - and you can have your pack transported to them if you want to. I now book private rooms in the albergues that have them so that I still interact with the pilgrims, break bread at meal times and spend time with them in the evenings.
With four of you, many pensiones and hostales have triple and quad rooms and the cost would be the same as sleeping in a private albergue.

[Caminobd]

Gracias Sil for the information and quick response,

caminobd