Soon the time will come and I will start my own journey on the Way of St. James. I’m currently making the final preparations and optimizing my equipment so that I’m as well prepared as possible. In about 10 weeks, I will set off from home and walk from my front door to Santiago de Compostela. I have planned a rough travel time of 3 months for the almost 2400 km.
During this time, I will mainly be staying in my tent and will therefore be independent of time and place. It therefore makes little sense to plan the individual steps precisely and I can decide from day to day how long I want to stay in which places and how many kilometers I want to cover per day.
However, as I don’t want to start my trip completely unprepared, I have also thought about a rough route that I will more or less stick to. This route looks something like this:
Germany
First of all, I have to get from my home (near Karlsruhe) to the Way of St. James in Baden. The first stop on my journey is therefore Ettlingen. From there, I follow the Baden Way of St. James via Baden-Baden to Offenburg. I will then continue via Freiburg in the direction of Switzerland (Basel)
Switzerland
In Switzerland, my route will take me from Basel to the end of Lake Geneva. There I will leave Switzerland again and continue my journey in France.
France
My first major destination in France is Le Puy-en Valey in the Auvergne. This is where the famous “Via Podiensis” Way of St. James begins. I will follow this path for the next few hundred kilometers. Before I reach the Pyrenees, I will reach the town of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, which is the starting point for most pilgrims on the Way of St. James.
Spain
From my last stop in France, I will either hike through the Pyrenees to Pamplona or more or less bypass them to the north and hike directly to San Sebastian. I will decide spontaneously on the spot which of the two routes I choose.
At least it is certain that I will not be following the well-known Camino Francés, but will be taking the northern variant of the Camino del Norte. This route is said to be less crowded than the “Camino Francés” and also offers a lot in terms of scenery.
My route then continues along the coast through the Basque Country to Bilbao. My hike then takes me via Santander to Oviedo. There I will probably leave my current path again and switch to the “Camino Primitivo”. This original route will then take me through the Cantabrian Mountains to the official end of my journey, namely to Santiago de Compostela.
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