Which sacred trail is for you - Pilgrims' Way or Camino de Santiago?

By Amy Cooper

For this sacred showdown, I'm proudly donning my England (hair) shirt. Sure, the continentals always beat us at football, food and fashion, but when it comes to the prettiest route between relics with maximum good times along the way, it's England's time to shrine.

The beautiful British Isles are crisscrossed with ancient trails linking historic treasures, and the Pilgrims' Way, traversing 200 kilometres across three counties in southern England, is the most celebrated of them all. From Winchester to Canterbury, you'll meander through scenery straight from rural idyll central casting: beech woods, bluebell meadows, undulating riverbanks and avenues of yews; picturesque villages, old stone churches and cosy inns.

Your destination: 1400-year-old Canterbury Cathedral, where Medieval martyr Thomas Becket lived, worked, was slain in 1170 and then enshrined. Back then people travelled for bones, not beaches, and St Thomas's tomb became the nation's top tourist attraction.

England's first cathedral is a Romanesque-Gothic stunner and should be on everyone's Becket list. So too the Way's starting point, Winchester Cathedral. Built over 500 years from 1079 to 1532, it's the longest medieval cathedral in the world and a resplendent reliquary for St Swithun. He's patron saint of rain. Could anything be more English? Yes - that would be St Thomas again. He's the patron saint of English brewing, and his coat of arms once adorned the London Brewers' Company in recognition of his pilgrims' penchant for pints.

You can follow their ale trail today, starting with the still-active tradition of Wayfarers' Dole - free beer and bread for anyone who knocks at Winchester's Hospital of St Cross and Almshouse of Noble Poverty. Then cosy up by the inglenooks of venerable old inns such as Winchester's the Royal Oak and Hollingbourne's the Dirty Habit - both established in the 11th century - and Thurnham's The Black Horse before toasting St Thomas in Canterbury with a pint of Bishops Finger ale, named for the shape of the Pilgrims' Way signposts.

I'm not saying your pilgrimage should be all party, no piety. Beside those village pubs are lovely parish churches and prehistoric monuments. The megalithic burial ground Kit's Coty House is more than 5000 years old. The landscape itself is balm for the soul. There's literary inspiration, too: Jane Austen's home in Chawton, and Charles Dickens' home in Rochester. You can follow the trail of the fictional pilgrims in Chaucer's 14th-century classic, The Canterbury Tales, inspired by the Pilgrims' Way. It's a bawdy, boozy masterpiece that starts in a tavern and visits several more.

And there we are, back at the pub, haven for pilgrims and home to all the best English stories. On a trail devoted to the saint of brewing, it'll always end in beers.

By Mal Chenu

Finding out the Camino isn't a Toyota model can be quite a revelation. The Camino de Santiago (or "Way of St James") has been a pilgrims' progression since bits of the apostle were unearthed in the ninth century, and the reverent thought it might be nice to visit them.

There are easier ways to get to Jimmy's shrine in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in north-western Spain, but walking gives a pilgrim time to reflect. Generally about what's for dinner and how much their feet hurt, sure, but millions undertake parts of this holy hike every year, and righteously so.

The Camino is actually a plethora of pious paths extending throughout Europe and the most popular routes wind their way through France, Portugal and Spain. But wherever you offer up your blisters, salvation is found in gorgeous towns and villages and bucolic countryside. England's Pilgrims' Way, by comparison, is a pub crawl. To extend the earlier automotive metaphor, it is the Goggomobil of spiritual leg stretches. "On a pilgrimage are we, guv? Another pint an' a bacon sarnie? Pity about all the rain, init?"

The shrine of Thomas Becket is your goal on the Pilgrims' Way. Becket was martyred more than 1100 years after St James, and is a Tommy-come-lately, saint-wise. And the Pilgrims' Way signs say "Pilgrims Way" so be sure to pack a crayon so you can add the requisite apostrophes.

Read more on Explore:

There are so many Camino routes you may need a "good book" to help you decide which Way. In fact, the very first travel guide published in 1140CE was all about the Camino - a Frommer's for the faithful. Party-minded pilgrims are called to Camino Frances in northern Spain or Camino Portugues on the Iberian west coast. These offer manna from heaven as you approach Santiago de Compostela, as shops and restaurants multiply like Old Testament begatters.

If you're in it for the loaves and fishes, check out Camino del Norte on north coast of Spain, where top-notch nosheries abound, especially around San Sebastian. Or Camino Mozarabe in the Andalusian south, where huge tapas servings fortify you for detours to the Alhambra in Granada and the Mosque Cathedral in Cordoba.

A few more tips: The scallop seashell is the symbol of the Camino and pole markers (some as old as Methuselah) illustrated with shells show the Way. A lot of people walk for scenery rather than epiphany, so unless you are John Wayne, don't call everyone "pilgrim". You don't have to learn to play the lute but you should walk with a staff, also known as a pilgrim's crutch.

The Camino is well serviced with lovely B&Bs and other stays, and as you lower your own sweaty pilgrim's crutch into a nice hot bath after a long day of sanctified strolling, you'll know you've chosen the right Way. Amen.