<html><DIV>I find this discussion a little irritating. Travel almost anyplace in Western Europe is safer than travel almost anyplace in the US. Crime along the camino is so rare as to be noteworthy when it happens. Sadly that is not true even in some of the "safer" cities in the US such as Seattle where I live. Take ordinary precautions, of course, for example do not leave an expensive camera or a wad of large denomination bills on top of your bunk in a refugio (why are you carrying them on a pilgrimage anyway?), but remember that most people in France and Spain do not carry handguns, robbery and burglary happen but are hardly common, and murder rates are a tiny fraction of those in death penalty obsessed US states like Texas and Virginia. I travel a great deal, and I have rarely felt safer than I did walking the camino and staying in the refugios. I have much greater fears of robbery and mayhem when hiking re!
mo!
te sections the Pacific Crest and Appalachain Trails here in the US!</DIV>
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<DIV>E. O. Pederson</DIV>
<DIV>Seattle, WA</DIV><br clear=all><hr>Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at <a href="http://explorer.msn.com">http://explorer.msn.com</a><br></p></html>