A decision

So much for along period of pondering and musing.. within  weeks of hearing the call of the camino.. I have decided to walk the Le Puy route. Why.. mainly because so many people who have both walked this route and others say that this is the one that they would repeat. Without the time to walk all three (how great would that be!) I am going to go with this choice. And as for timing.. I have gone from thinking that I would walk in 2012, to thinking that I might make late 2011 (but  found that I was the last person in NZ to realise that most flights to Europe in September / October are already booked for the Rugby World Cup) to making a very sudden decision that I might be able to go over the June mid year University break. Within days of this decision, and with some last minute online reassurance from the Santiago Forum, and a phone call to KiwiNomad in Palmerston Nth, I booked my tickets into and out of Paris.  Exciting and terrifying.. but it is time for an adventure!

Le Puy en Velay

Le Puy en Velay or Via Podensis to St Jean Pied de Port is the most popular of the routes through France. It generally follows the GR65 and is very beautiful, green, hilly and wet. It is  736 km  from Le Puy to St Jean Pied de Port

My research here

Arles ?

The Arles route (chemin d'Arles, voie d'Arles or Via Tolosana) goes from Arles, crosses part of the Camargue, through Montpellier and Toulouse and becomes the Camino Aragonese, joining up with the Camino Frances at Puenta la Reina. Here is my research.

Pro

• Some interesting cities (Arles, Toulouse etc)
• Camping may be possible
• CSJ recommends "Consider it seriously - discover it early"
• Good waymarking
• Plenty of Gites, hotels etc
• More pilgrims than Vezelay
• More spectacular scenery

Con

• More varied terrain, hillier than other routes , higher level of fitness needed
• May be colder and wetter in the shadow of the Pyranees
• Heavy rainfall common in September
• Average stages longer than le Puy route

Vezelay?

It is about 900 k from Vezelay to St Jean Pied de Port. Forum discussions here I have made a Google Doc out of my findings on the Vezelay route that I will keep adding to as I find relevant sites. So far the pros in favour of this route are

• It is relatively inexpensive, with some pilgrim accomodation
• Beautiful countryside
• Not too crowded.. locals less likely to be jaded by a constant stream of pilgrims
• Reasonably flat and not too hard

Against

• Can be lonely
• Mostly rural.. few cities
• Not as much variety in the terrain?

Which route?

My first camino began in Roncesvalles in 2001. My second in St Jean Pied de Port in 2003. This time I am looking at going further back into France. There seem to be be 4 main routes. I have read very little about the route from Paris. The CSJ site says that it has largely disappeared under tarmac and doesn't recommend it. The other routes are Vezelay (La Voie de Vezelay or Via Lemovicensis), the route from Le Puy and the route from Arles

In the beginning..

It is just over 9 years since my first camino. I walked alone from Roncesvalles to Santiago de Compostela. I was absolutely terrified when I started, yet at the same time, despite all the challenges, I knew that everything would work out. It did and I had a fantastic time.. I met wonderful people, loved Spain and fell in love with the camino. Two years later I returned again, this time with my husband G and walked from St Jean Pied de Port to Santiago. I found this camino more challenging physically, possibly because I had done less training. I had stopped off in Germany for the 5 weeks before, to spend some time with a lovely friend I had met on my previous camino.

Last weekend a little trip switch went off in my head and I knew that it is time to start planning my next camino. I can trace a number of different contributing factors but the final impetus was a photo of one of the French camino routes on Margaret's Camino-spirations blog.

This blog is a place for me to begin my planning. I think that I am looking at one of the French routes , but sadly I probably only have time to walk about 900k and so don't have time to walk the whole way to Santiago. Probably sometime in 2012.. so much planning to do now!