Can easily see a movie here…
The Camino as we knew it, is gone. It’s been replaced with a Santiago Super Highway of people who all know best, paved by Camino Agencies that benefit greatly from isolating their customers from the local service industry and other pilgrims, lined with albergues and bars that don’t see the pilgrim but their wallet, and a Catholic Disneyland at the end.
@maique Well, that was depressing. I know about the Camino mostly from the movie The Way, which, I learned here, helped create the problem. Sigh.
@JohnBrady @maique There are a few alternative caminos, and I think this article is about the easiest, most-travelled one. I wonder if real pilgrims will start using less commercialized routes?
@JohnBrady It is. I don’t even care about it that much, even though there is also a Portuguese Camino, and I have friends who walked it.
Sad that this kind of greed happens everywhere.
@JohnBrady @maique my wife was a pilgrim on a smaller portion starting in Spain last fall, and volunteered in an albergue for a week as part of the process. Yes, commercialization is real—and has been since the middle ages—but it is entirely possible for a pilgrim-minded pilgrim to walk the Way of St. James.
@maique there is an element of truth in this from Sarria to Santiago, but otherwise, this is not at all my experience of the times I have walked on the Camino, last time in 2022.
@wfm Good to know, there is some hope then? I have no idea about the Portuguese part of the Camino but, if we look at Fátima, a lot can go wrong.
@maique never been on the Portuguese side so I don't know about that, is on the bucket list, But I'm not even going to complain about Sarria to Santiago as a few years back, I walked just that part with my Dad, then almost 80 and my daughter, then in college and it was an experience together the three of us will always treasure.