Charlie. You can’t blog about the Camino in English and not talk about the Brierly book. John Brierly, British, writes the most used Camino guide in English. The best way to identify English speakers is to notice if they are carrying Brierly.
I think it is also the best but not everyone agrees. He does have some errors, we have run into several wrong phone numbers, but generally it is very good. It is pretty with beautiful and useful maps and elevation guides. He lists all the albergues and some hotels and casa rural in each town. He does not rate places to stay and offers few opinions on how good they are. There are other guides and websites that do that.
Brierly divides the Camino into 33 daily stages, 20 to 30 km per stage. Endpoints of Brierly stages tend to be busier than other towns.
He is spiritual and maybe a bit mystical. At the beginning of each stage description there are sections: the practical path, the mystical path and personal reflections. He is a purist and doesn’t like paths by roads (who does?) He can be a bit new-agey but generally I like his suggestions.
We are getting close to Leon and in the last stage Brierly suggests you just take a bus past the long environs of Leon. This is surprising since there is kind of a thing about walking every step. It is the goal of almost all pilgrims. Even your way-slow way pilgrims wanted to walk the parts we had missed last time. Brierly suggests you think about your goals for the Camino and use the time you save to go on to Finisterre.
This is kind of like getting a papal dispensation to lie and steal.
We plan to take his advice even though we skipped it last year. We are finding that the parts we skipped we skipped for good reasons that still apply.