Revisiting Spain and the Camino

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So there are now many photos from the Camino de Santiago on these pages and perhaps for some of you this particular area requires some explanation. Here goes...
The Camino de Santiago-to be referred to here as the "Camino," is a pilgrimage that dates back to the middle ages. I won go into a lot of detail but the short version is...the bones of Saint James the Apostle (known in Spain as Santiago) were supposedly brought to Northern Spain-the northwest corner-by his followers. About 900 years later someone found them, and built a shrine to St. James, the shrine became a church, the church became a bigger church and is now one of the largest Cathedrals in the Christian World. Since the middle ages people have been trekking to the church to worship, or just hang out, or sell stuff, or, in our case, go for a long walk and see some fabulous scenery. The Camino de Santiago has been called the oldest tourist route in Europe. It is supposed to be the third most frequented pilgrimage in the Christian world, the Holy Land, Rome and then the Camino. If you walk the entire Camino and can prove it, there are said to be "indulgences" which will get you into heaven more easily-if not directly!. I can say, there were certainly a lot of "pilgrims" on it and we were walking a bit "off season". Anyhow, the Camino begins in a variety of places but for our purposes was going to begin in St. Jean Pied-du-port, France. For reasons Anne mentioned earlier, we actually began our walk in Pamplona, Spain instead. The weather and sheer laziness were the two main influencing factors here.

If one begins in St. Jean and walks the entire Camino, it is more or less, 788 Kilometers and takes somewhere around 30 days, based on 20-30 Km a day. Most people walk, some bike. Many folks walk portions of it over several years until they finish. We met two young "gentleman" from Belgium who began walking there. When we met them outside of Pamplona- they had already walked 1500 Km. and were really just beginning to walk the Camino-some kids just don have enough to do!!! Anyhow, we planned to walk a portion at the beginning and then the last five days or so. We were keen but not so keen as to spend Thirty days and change. From Pamplona we walked for two days to take us to Estella. Then we caught a bus, then a train, etc to go to Sarria where we walked the remainder of the Camino, into Santiago de Compostella. The walk takes a person from the Pyrennees, across the north of Spain, to Santiago in the Northwest Corner of Spain. If you are really interested you might want to look at a map...if not, thats OK too. Altogether, we walked about 175 KM of the total Camino. Didn seem like much when we talked to people we met who did the entire thing, but it was a pretty good stretch for me, couch potato that I am reknown to be!! It was really quite amazing. The country was beautiful and the photos of any of it don really do it justice. We saw many amazing things and so much "history" it was crazy. Most of the towns and villages we went through date back (at least in part) to the middle ages. Lots of places to somewhere between 1000 and 1300 A.D. There had, as you may expect, been a few "renovations" over the years but many of the downtown "cores" went back to this period. Lots of stone fortifications, crooked streets designed to confuse the enemy. Coming from Canada and thinking Quebec City and its fortifications are old, some of these places really leave you wondering. For part of the time we were walking on roads that were initially built by the Romans-some BC....and there are still visible parts left. Makes me wonder how much of our new Trans Canada in NB will be kicking around in 2100 years-even if we repave it for most elections.

All that said, the most impressive thing was the people. Our first day walking we met about 15 or 20 Canadians. Over our walk-keep in mind we only did the wimp walk-just 7 days or so-we met people from Canada, the US(two priests from Ohio-among others) England, Australia, France, Spain, Italy, Germany(many), Hungary, Korea, Armenia, Greece, Holland, Denmark, Finland, Brazil, Uraguay, Belgium, and likely a few more. These are just the ones we spoke to long enough to establish where they were from. Some were walking for spiritual reasons, some physical, some just because they could. All could relate to sore feet! For many it was a life-changing experience. Some were walking it many times over. We met one couple from Shediac who had walked the entire Camino 5 times!!

Well, there will likely be a few more specific stories about the Camino but that is kind of the "nutshell" version so far. Have to step the tempo up a bit just to get caught up. Stay tuned for time on the Canal du Midi. Cheers.

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Comments

[Dever]

Two thumbs up!
Congratulations on walking a very, very long ways, 175 kilometers may not seem like a long walk next to 1500km but personally 175 is a lot farther than I would ever walk! I hope you continue to enjoy yourselves. Love, Dever

[CandiceM]

Hoofin' it
Peter, when you said you were doing a walk for part of your trip, I had no idea how fantastic a walk it would be! It sounds (and looks) just incredible and I enjoy reading about the history behind it. It sounds like a great trip for anyone to put on their list.

[Helen Shaw]

keep walking
Hi Peter and anne, I'm trying to catch up to you in reading and you are going so fast. Have a great adventure in walking the creation that God has given us.Helen