<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">Richard, am planning on taking 1 1/2 mo to do the Camino, starting on June 1st, Roncesvalles. I'd like to ask you a few questions based on this.<BR>
1) Is that plenty of time?<BR>
2) What would u say, ball park, could be a daily walking average, in miles, with a time framework of 1 1/2 mo?<BR>
3) I expect to be arriving in Santiago during the first 2 weeks in July-how crowded do you think that geographic area could be?<BR>
<BR>
Thanks,<BR>
<BR>
Abrazos de Xosé Manuel<BR>
<BR>
In a message dated 2/21/2003 3:34:05 PM Eastern Standard Time, peregrinoaATT.NET writes:<BR>
<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">The overall tradeoff is that the better the weather, the more crowded it will be.<BR>
<BR>
July and August have the most pilgrims, 15,000 a month or more. They are also<BR>
the only dry months. The off season for pilgrims is, as you would expect,<BR>
November to March, with fewer than 1000 pilgrims per month. April starts the<BR>
major flows of pilgrims, and it increases every month from April to August.<BR>
September is about half of the August number, so still busy, too busy for my<BR>
taste.<BR>
<BR>
I stared at weather and pilgrim data til I was blue in the face. I ended up<BR>
going in late March. I choose worse weather to avoid crowds. The weather that I<BR>
actually got was better than the average, I only had rain one day in five, so I<BR>
was lucky.<BR>
<BR>
It comes down to your choice, just realize that you can't have both good weather<BR>
and no crowds, unless you are very lucky with the weather.<BR>
<BR>
Richard<BR>
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