Is the camino becoming too popular ?
There are different views on this. Some regret the not-so-very-distant days of few pilgrims and rudimentary facilities; others welcome the emergence of a mass pilgrimage on foot in Europe to compare (albeit still feebly) with those to Mecca and Benares, pointing out that if you want a solitary walk, whether religious or otherwise, there are plenty of places left. Certainly the Camino francés has been promoted well beyond the capacity of the facilities available for pilgrims, and the refugios have been tending to fill up well before the usual high season. The summer’s unseemly race between pilgrims who set off earlier and earlier each day to be sure of a bed in the next refuge, starts in the spring, and extends into the autumn as well. Similar difficulties are arising on the very popular le Puy Route in France. Perhaps this means that the original hardship of the camino, when there were few if any facilities for pilgrims, has been replaced by another type of hardship: the difficulty of
