Thoughts and some of the harder bits!

What were the lowlights!?

It would be a mistake to imagine that the whole of the 34 days of walking to Santiago were a picnic.  There were some quite hard bits.  When you completely run out of energy for example, that is quite hard.  I developed a reputation by some in my party for becoming prostrate on arrival at an Albergue.  There’s nothing so satisfying as lying down on a bed when you’ve been walking all day and resting your feet on the bunk above to allow the blood to drain out of them somewhat!  I was adept at getting my stuff out of the backpack whilst lying like that, and to an Indian gentleman’s amusement explained that I was simply being energy efficient!! He was so impressed, he wrote it down.

Heatstroke or something on Day 2!

There was a great deal to feel satisfied by when I reached Roncesvalles  - it had been 16 or so miles up and over the Pyrenees, so setting off for day 2 with much fewer challenges relatively speaking should have been OK.  It was really hot that day, and we had several miles of walking at the end of the afternoon that were over small hills and then back down again which was quite wearing.  We also walked around a cement works which was definitely not attractive. 

We arrived at our destination which was a village called Larrousuana to find the Albergue full.  They had thought they had one bed which I was going to have, but unfortunately (or so it seemed) it was already taken.  So all three of us got accommodation at two different places.  I’m so glad I was staying in the house where I was.  I met Chris and Mu for a dinner, and during the starter felt unwell, and left the table which was just as well as I was violently sick.  I went back to my lodgings and was sick again in the early hours of the morning.  Getting out from what I am sure would have been a top bunk does not bear thinking about. 

The next morning, Chris and Mu came to get me at the appointed hour of 7.00am and patiently waited quite a long time for me to get going. The walk to Pamplona was relatively short – 12 miles or so, but it seemed much longer.  I don’t remember much of the route, apart from the last 5 miles which were flat and through the suburbs of Pamplona and felt interminable! There were regular seats along the way, and a fair selection of them were tested!  However 2 hours comatose on my bunk followed by 10 hours sleep had some positive effects.  I wasn’t feeling great the next morning, but did make the day!  This was clear evidence to me of the benefits of supportive walking companions.  I’d not have got to Pamplona without them!

Ironed feet!

Walking to Santa Domingo de Calzar was a long day. It was day 9 and we were getting into our stride a bit, and had a day where we walked over 20 miles.  It was also an interesting town to visit, and so we walked a bit during the evening too, all of which adds to the toll on the feet.  Climbing up the stairs in the hostel had prompted a lovely Irish chap to comment that my gait downstairs suggested that my ‘big end’ had gone – very helpful, and definitely remembered by those who would like to tease me!

Anyway, the next morning was really hard work.  Usually after 10 minutes or so my feet would loosen up and allow me to get going.  Not this morning.  It felt as though my feet had been ironed.  And the camino path was sandy but with stones laid on it and so walking on those meant that you had to adjust your feet for every step.  The first couple of hours that day was really hard going.  We stopped and a foot massage helped a bit, but it was not until lunchtime that I was comfortable walking.  I did find myself thinking that I was supposed to be enjoying this, and perhaps was not, but such negativity does not last, and you realise that in the mix of things it’s just a minor irritation.  Like all hitting your head on the wall experiences, it’s good when it stops.

Walking along the Roman Road

This was quite a short day’s walk.  We had walked along beside a road on a path called a ‘senda’ created to link parts of the Camino where roads had taken the track.   This then gave way to what was described in our book as a Roman Road.  Fortunately it had been covered over with sand and gravel so was easy to walk on.  It was also pretty flat.  So, it should have been an easy walk.  However, what they say about the Roman’s building straight roads is certainly true, and it continued into the distance unrelentingly.  The fields that bordered it were large, sometimes wheat, sometimes sunflowers. But when you walked alongside them, each seemed interminable.  It’s really interesting that for the three of us, and for other pilgrims we talked to, this was a really hard day’s walking.  It all goes to show that the mental effort can be just as great as the physical challenges. 

When we got to our destination that afternoon, I had a leg massage which was lovely.  The hospitaliero who gave it to me was really good, and it certainly made a difference to my walking after that.  She recommended tighter socks as a result of seeing the remains of my blisters.  Whilst I was having the massage there was a great thunderstorm, which had definitely spooked some of the people who had been walking this flat ground whilst the lightning flashed and the thunder rolled.

What have I learnt – about myself?

I had never given myself any serious physical challenges in the past.  I’d been on walking holidays, and climbed the odd mountain, but I’d never had to keep going for 34 days.  So now I know I can do that and cope with the odd pain from blisters or ironed feet.  There were times in the first 10 days when I would say resolve was indeed required, but after that there was so much to enjoy about the process, and watching the changing landscape certainly enhanced and reinforced the pleasures of the walk.

I suppose I might sum that up as reinforcing my view of myself as being someone who can do things that I set my mind to.  I was certainly aware, though, when the German girl left after a short time that I might also have given up if I had not had personal support. 

The experience also reinforced what I knew about myself in that I like to do things properly.  There was a level of smug not altogether attractive satisfaction about starting at St Jean Pied de Port AND carrying my bag all the way that allowed me to feel superior to some who had their bag (trunk) (there I go again, you see) carried all the way.  They missed out on an interesting discipline, but many who joined later in the walk would have had the restrictions of holiday to contend with that I would normally have had too!

What I have also learnt?

This Camino starts in France and ends in Santiago.  As a metaphor for life, it works quite well, in that you start and don’t go back.  So it’s really important to take in the place that you are when you are there.  You only see it in the light that is happening at the time.  Places where we stayed we might see at sunset and at sunrise too, but most of the places you see in the circumstances that are happening when you are there.  So it’s really important to drink in the environment as you pass it – the pretty bridge, the long views, the mist in the morning and so on.  I’d like to think I am quite good at living in the present, and six weeks doing just that does have a powerful way of reminding you of that fact. 

There’s a personal openness that applies to many people on the Camino, but in an interesting way.  You find out quite a lot about them in terms of their motivation or personal interest,  but you often know nothing of their family or work situation.  This is really refreshing – perhaps we spend too much time being our profession or job, rather than being us.

For most of my life I have had very little ‘routine’.  My jobs have generally been in different places with different people most of the time.  The Camino is all about routine – what happens each day is broadly similar though with the important difference of location.  For me, this was quite sufficient to make each day pleasurable, so does this mean I can do routine in my daily life?  I’m not sure – and having come back, I haven’t adopted a routine to structure my day.

Every day on the Camino there is a clear outcome – 15 miles walked, two churches visited, a bridge drawn, my diary written.  However this is a different measure of the same activity that I described above in terms of living in the present.   In general in my life I think outcomes have been important, both at work and socially.  There is a tension between being and doing, but after this walk experience I am not as convinced that they are as clear opposites as they are often presented.  Are they perhaps necessary parts of a reflection on life –the yin and yang?

One part of the Camino that cannot possibly be ignored is the fact that it is marked throughout by Catholic Churches.  Some of them are incredibly decorated with gold dripping from altars around the church. The opulence of these, and the contrast that they must have been to the poverty of the lives of the villagers around, I find very hard to reconcile.  To my taste, they are not particularly attractive; one fellow traveller commented that she had seen the hole in Peru where most of the gold came from, and they did rather seem like trophies to me rather than beautiful structures.

Others are much plainer, and certainly more to my taste.  Many of them were 11^th or 12^th Century, if not the complete fabric now, then with significant elements of these buildings still standing.  In some cases, the structure of the building was impressive and beautiful; in others the statuary and stone work were remarkable – varied, skillful and sometimes intriguing.  The reflection of the effort of so many people to create these buildings is awesome and reflects the financial investment that the church had made in building them too. I imagine that these were designed to indicate the heavenly life to come and make more bearable the rigours and hardships of medieval life.  They also serve to remind you that you are quite small really.  As you look up at some of the structures, not just the cathedrals, pilgrims at all times must have felt awed by the buildings which reflect the work of so many, and the money too.

For those who were Catholic, there was clearly a different experience from mine.  We attended a number of pilgrim masses which generally had a core attendance of a handful of local people – did they really go there every day?  Usually there was a prayer especially for the pilgrims. The service we went to in Pamplona was rushed and gabbled by the priest – it felt as though he was wanting to leave for another appointment.  Sometimes the service was a great experience – as at Rabanal. The familiarity of the process clearly has a merit about it, and there is something about the constancy with which those words have been spoken in that place.  Somehow the speed with which a parishioner usually turned the lights off afterwards suggested that spirituality was not at the core of the experience. 

Would I do it again?

I probably would, not all of it, but certainly to walk from Leon would be no hardship.  There are other routes than the French way, and perhaps that would be worth trying.  However, there are so many other places in the world to go and walk, and not to have to commit six weeks to the activity.

One of the real benefits of this walk is that the accommodation is plentiful, and generally does not have to be booked beforehand.   As a result you do not have to define exactly where you will be every night.  That freedom makes the walking much more enjoyable, and for that reason doing the walk or some part of it again would be worth visiting.  

A view of the Camino

Why did I want to go?

I had known about the Camino for the last 20 years or so, when I had been working on a project about Medieval life. I had been stunned by the numbers of more than a million people per year who had made the pilgrimage to Santiago in the 12^th and 13^th Centuries.  Truly staggering figures.  When Chris and Muriel had made the trip two years ago, I had been very envious of their experience, and so when I was made redundant, this seemed like an ideal opportunity to give it a go.

I was conscious when I made the suggestion to them both that it was a big ask to have me butt in on their plans, and so I was motivated to at least make sure that I was fit enough for the trip.  We had a 3 day practice walk in May along the beginnings of the South Downs Way, which I managed, but wanted to get significantly fitter, and worked consistently on walking more over the following few months.  Mountain training is quite hard in Cambridgeshire, but I did my best with the odd foray to Derbyshire put into the mix too.

So the historical interest was the intellectual level of purpose.  However, I also wanted to prove to myself that I could follow the sort of regime that required somewhere between 15 and 20 miles a day to keep up with Chris and Muriel!  The first day required a walk up the Pyrenees – some 1300m of elevation to be gained.  This certainly seemed a hard challenge for the first day, but I was assured it would be fine.  And when you’ve started something like this, there is a need to finish it.  After all, I had been telling people I was going to walk to Santiago, not just part of the walk, so I certainly felt a need to achieve my goal!  I was also very conscious that I had got agreement from Chris and also A Linda that I would be away for 6 weeks or so, so not to complete it would again have been unsatisfactory.  I don’t yet envisage having retired, and so a 6 week break is not a regular entitlement for the working woman, and certainly not to be wasted!

Having 6 weeks of walking also would give me time for some reflection on life, my life, learning about other people’s lives, and perhaps time to think about what I also want to change about the way my life is. 

A day on the Camino

One of the really interesting things about the walk is that you do the same thing every day for 34 days.  There are no weekends, so it really is every day.  I don’t think that has ever happened in my life before, or at least not since childhood.  The day starts somewhere between 6am and 7am depending on how noisy the dormitory is that you are staying in, and you get up and dressed (not showered as its best to have dry feet when you start walking).  Breakfast is sometimes in the hostel, but more often it is at a café somewhere, hopefully not too far from the hostel, though occasionally that was not the case!

Then you set off, sometimes with a wonderful sunrise behind you.  Signage for the route is generally fantastic with either shell signs or yellow arrows on the pavement, signposts or street furniture.  Usually there would be a walk of about 5 miles before second breakfast, though that would depend on the existence of a village at that sort of distance, most of which would have a café or bar selling food to the pilgrims – peregrinos in Spanish.   It was a good idea to stop and take boots and sometimes socks off to cool the feet when stopped, a behaviour that we recognised should not be continued when we got back to Cambridge!  We usually stopped for about 20 mins to half an hour.  Much longer than that, and you got stiff!  We’d then set off for another 5 miles which might make it lunch time, and then the final 5 mile stretch, which nearly always seemed the longest, would take us to the town or village we were staying in for the night. 

The places we stayed were called Albergues and a network of these had been set up by the Spanish Government in the 1990s to encourage people to walk the Camino again.  That was when the signage and route were reinstated, and the local people were encouraged to support the effort with cafes etc along this route.  As well as the Municipal Albergues there are an increasing number of private ones available too.  The cheapest cost about 5 Euros per night, with private ones costing about 10E.  As there are so many across Spain you do not need to book, and in fact cannot book the Municipal ones so that the beds go to those who arrive on foot first, rather than people who have booked ahead.  The same is not true of the private ones – these you can book, though we generally did not, and had relatively little trouble finding accommodation.  One of the best things about this system is that you do not have to plan exactly where you will stay and therefore how far you will walk every day.  That freedom is really great.

Once you have arrived at an Albergue you find your bunk and go and shower and then sort out getting your washing done.  Generally we used a washing machine, but sometimes that was not available and so you had to handwash, which was not so ideal!  And once that was all done, you were ready to explore the town and find somewhere to eat.  On days when we had walked 20 miles, the exploration was usually not very distant, and quite often it was a small village that we were staying in anyway, so there was not far to go. 

Most of the restaurants on route offered a pilgrim’s menu – a 3 course meal with wine, bread and water.  Often these were around 10 Euros, and really very good, though perhaps after 34 days sometimes a little repetitive!  In some places this meant eating with whoever was in the hostel which was great.  Occasionally this would happen at dinner in a restaurant too.  It was a great way of meeting people, and for those travelling alone ensured that they didn’t have to eat by themselves. And after dinner, there was a need to be back in the hostel for 10.00pm, though sometimes a little later in larger towns or cities.  However, being in bed at 10.00pm was no hardship! 

So the next day, we got up and did it again.  There’s a real satisfaction to having that sort of regularity about life as whilst each day was in principle the same, each day was of course different as we walked through different places and different landscapes too.  In fact, the landscape changed quite quickly and noticeably, if not exactly day by day, it certainly changed from week to week.

Walking!

It’s only one foot in front of the other, and most people master it by the age of 15 months.  However, there are some differences in this walk! It’s just about 800kms or 500 miles.  It goes up and down a lot – over the top of the Pyrenees, and then up into Galicia too.  We carried our packs – that adds about 8 kilos or so to your weight, and every gram makes a difference.  Some people took advantage of the companies that have set up to transport your pack from one place to the next.  There were some people who had back problems and for whom this service enabled them to do the walk.  For others, it removed the requirement to limit exactly what you took with you, and that meant that they missed out on one of the interesting elements of the trip.  There was a certain superiority that we felt because we had carried our pack ourselves the whole way!

My pack had:
4 tops, 2 trousers, 1pair of shorts, a buff, 4 pairs of socks, underwear, a fleece and a jacket.  A sleeping bag, a travel towel, a poncho, a book (Middlemarch), guidebook to the Camino, a notebook, a pencil case with 1 pencil, 2 pens, a paint brush and also a small set of watercolours.   There were toiletries – and a hair brush, but these were as limited as possible.  A spare pair of glasses, a pair of sunglasses, a phone and camera charger and leads, a money belt and a carrier bag. I took my mobile phone so that I could keep in regular, though not daily touch with home, and a small camera.  And that was it. 

No one has ever suggested that our house is minimalist, so this approach to what I needed was actually very refreshing.  It hasn’t yet had an effect on the house, but it might!  It removes the opportunity for serious thoughts about ‘what shall I wear today,’ and also takes away distractions of other things to do.

The walk started for us at St Jean Pied de Port, on the French side of the Pyrenees.  There are lots of other places to start – some much further away, but for most people doing the French route, this is the starting point.  So there were probably about 100 or so other people who started from this village on the same day as us. These people form a group that you are likely to meet over the coming weeks.  Many people follow the route and timings suggested by Mike Brearly in his book about the Camino, and so will be walking to destinations and overnight stops that he suggests.

All the advice is that you should walk at your own pace.  This is really important as you have committed to walking about 15 miles per day, so there is no merit in rushing off and then not being able to keep going.  How fast you walk of course also depends on the terrain.  Walking on road – and there’s quite a lot of the route that is tarmac – has the merit of allowing you not to watch where you put your feet all the time, and enabling you to get into your stride.  It is hard on the feet however.  Much of the track is really good – wide enough to walk at least 4 abreast, and often sandy or finely graded surface.  In other places, the terrain is much more rugged, and watching where you put your feet is essential.  The first day’s walk was very significantly upward, but made much easier because quite a lot of the walk was on road, and so gaining height was not as hard as I thought it might be. 

As you walk you sometimes catch other people up, or they catch you.  If your speeds are really different, they might just pass with a ‘Buen Camino’ or some other friendly greeting.  In the first few days of the walk, there is much more likelihood that they will stop and talk with you, and we met quite a few people in the first week that we got to know and some of them we met much closer to the end of the walk, or in Santiago.

Everyone is walking in the same direction.  There are a few people you meet who have walked to Santiago and are now walking back.  Some of them look fairly scruffy and down and out, but there were some we met who were amazing – walking back to Hamburg for example.  When you walk into a village therefore, the first café you meet is often the one that gets most of the custom.  Generally we could sit outside which was great and there would be friendly chatter with other walkers that we might have passed or just caught up with that day. 

There was a significant percentage of the pilgrims who were English speaking, though very few who were from the UK.  There were significant numbers from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US, and of course, shamefully, there were many Europeans, particularly Germans and Scandewegians who would talk with us in highly competent English.  Comments would be passed about the landscape we’d just walked through, the weather, and of course your feet.

 

Feet were a major concern for everyone, and for some, blisters were a particular problem.  I had a few after Day 3, which were painful at times, but not debilitatingly so, and by about 10 days my feet had hardened enough for that no longer to be an issue at all. More challenging for me at the beginning of the walk, was the fact that my muscles would get stiff – including in my feet, and so the first 10 minutes or so after a stop would be hard going until they warmed up again!  One morning after a particularly long day, my feet felt as though they had been ironed, and the first few miles that day were really hard work.  Eventually they gave in, and it all got better!

There were some parts of the walk where you could see the Camino stretching out over the landscape ahead, sometimes for miles.  At the beginning these views often had almost no other pilgrims on the path.  Closer to Santiago, this was rarely the case.  To be awarded a Compostela, you need to have walked at least 100km.  So at 110km Sarria is the starting point for many.  Those of us who had walked ‘the whole route’ were of course a bit sniffy about these newcomers, but of course many people would never have the time to do the whole trip at once.  We met quite a lot of people who had done the journey in 3 stages, and some who had started at Leon, too.  Some of these newcomers (particularly the Americans of whom there were quite a lot who started in Leon) were interestingly proprietorial about the Camino, and I was interested to observe my view of superiority to them!

One of the issues that was a challenge throughout the walk was keeping fluid and energy levels right.  Some days you are using up 4000 calories, and I have rarely eaten anything like that amount during a day.  If you don’t eat enough, you can suddenly find yourself completely unable to go on, and the only thing to do is sit or lie and eat! We were very lucky with the weather for our trip.  It was nothing like as hot as I had feared, and the temperatures were regularly in the upper 20s not 30s! I carried about 1.5 litres of water each day and often had to refill it, as well as having drinks when we stopped.  1.5 litres is 1.5 Kilos, so water weight was significant.  At least it went down as the day went on, so the backpack was less heavy at the end of the day.

What were the highlights?

Getting to Roncevalles

The first day had loomed quite large in my anticipation of the trip.  St Jean is at 200m above sea level, and the top of the walk was at 1400m, so that’s more than the full height of Snowden to climb!  In reality, it was easier partly because a lot of the climb was on roads, so you could get a rhythm going, and whilst it was up, it was not breath-reducingly so!  There were bits near the top that were off road, but the distance overall was not great for that section, and so it did not feel unachievable.  Coming down to Roncevalles was steep, but not slippery, and the path was firm to walk on.  So by the time we had got to the Abbey at Roncevalles, I was feeling relief as well as encouraged.  A call home to indicate that I’d made that bit, also gave a bit of satisfaction, and so the idea that I might be able to make this trip started with the end of the first day’s walk!

The sunrises over the Meseta

The sunrises over the Meseta were extraordinary.  We were walking to the west, and often – fairly often – started before sunrise.  As a result, the sun rose behind us.  The meseta is an area which is quite high – about 800m above sea level, and in general is a flat plateau.  My geography teacher taught me that there is no such thing as flat in the natural world, and she was right, but it is fairly level landscape with some occasional rivers going across it, and some height variation, but generally very little.  So when the sun comes up the light it generates is very close to the ground and makes the most amazing red dusty colours shining through the wheat fields.  Generally the ground had been harvested, but the warm light was something that will stay with me.    Sometimes, there were hills ahead, and these would glow red in the early light in contrast to the darker fields around.  Absolutely beautiful.

The landscape often

There were many beautiful landscapes – the silky trees covering the lower slopes of the Pyrenees, with light just on the hill tops. Trees covered in lichen and moss. Distant mountain ranges becoming greyer the further away they were.  Clear blue skies with a single white cloud there for no apparent reason.  Hill villages or towns shining in the sunlight, with their churches standing proud of the other buildings. Paths with trees on either side, and fields full of cattle or sheep disappearing down the slope below.  Undulating landscapes with the camino clearly visible like a white ribbon laid on the soil. From the heights, big views back across many, many miles showing the distance we had come, and then big views forward showing the landscape that was to come.

The landscape was so often an interesting metaphor for the whole experience.  Sometimes what delighted was a view of a very small part of the landscape, a few hundred metres or so.  At other times, it was the big picture with the distant rolling landscape or mountain range that we were walking parallel to that was a delight – often not photographable.  In the same way, sometimes what was interesting or thought provoking was what was happening or had occurred to me; sometimes it was an insight into the whole walk!

The landscapes I’ve talked about here are all the natural ones.  There were many man-made buildings or bridges that impressed or were delightful  for their individual design or decoration.  Some were simply extraordinary.  But there were not many that were remarkable for their impact on the landscape – the location of the monastery at Samos, or the gateway into Burgos were particularly fine examples of that.

Rabanal

We walked into Rabanal fairly early – about 1.00pm and stayed at the Albergue run by the British organisation that supports the Way of St James.  It was being managed by 2 Irish couples who were lovely.  It was a pleasant building with a beautiful garden outside with tables and chairs as well as a covered area for welcome shade.  I spent most of the afternoon in the garden after we had had a sumptuous picnic lunch; there were people to talk to who were interesting, some who we had met the evening in Roncevalles.  Robin was celebrating his 75^th birthday that day, and the Irish couples had sorted out a cake which was a lovely touch.  We had tea and biscuits and buns in the garden at 4.30pm – a daily ritual there.  Everyone stayed to chat which was really good.

Then a monk from the monastery next door came in to find some people to read a short lesson in different languages at Vespers at 7.00pm.  I volunteered to read the English (!) and we had readers for French and German too.  The church is 11^th Century, and unlike many of the overly decorated ones that we had visited, is very rugged, with stones patched and plastered roughly.  Services have been celebrated there for almost a thousand years.  Its atmosphere spoke of that constant use!  The monk who had recruited us had a lovely voice and was responsible for managing the antiphonal singing of the psalms and verses.  It was a delight to hear him.  

Chris and Mu had been there before, and Chris had heard the word ‘buho’ which means little owl in Spanish.  He was curious to know where it could be found, but the monk did not know.  We agreed to go to Compline later, which we did after a snack – we were still too full after lunch to want a full dinner!

When we went to Compline, with lovely singing again, the monk beamed as he started to sing about the buho and smiled at us across the church.  It occurs in Psalm 102, and means that Chris and Mu must have been there on a Thursday last time, as the service differs each day.  A spooky connection, I would say.  It was a wonderful afternoon of tranquility and calm in a place where that seemed to emanate from every stone. 

Burgos

It was a long day’s walk to get to Burgos, and I was getting pretty tired towards the end of the walk.  We walked through a park into the city centre for the last 7km and some of this was very straight, which makes you both clear about how far you have to go, and also clear that you are not making much progress.

However, when we did get to the city, the entrance to Burgos is through a huge white gateway with portcullis groove still visible.  It’s so impressive, with towers and crenulations and little statues all over it, and standing above and behind that is the Cathedral which is a confection in stone with decorative bits covering it that must have stunned the pilgrims in medieval times.  We had jolly imaginary conversations with the builders – ‘so I’d like to pay for a tower and I want 4 turrets with decorations on.’  ‘Well of course he might have ordered 4 turrets, but I’ll give you the money to make 6 turrets on my tower..’  and so on. It looks as though anywhere a piece of decorative stonework could be placed, it was. There are doorways with angels cascading over them, gargoyles placed so that water coming out of them pours onto the heads of the saints below.  Was that what the benefactor or the builder intended?  There are flying buttresses and towers and doorways all in a shining white stone that is extraordinary against a strong blue sky.  It’s a huge building and impressive inside with pillars and side chapels throughout.

It’s interesting though that it’s impressive that is the word I want to use about it.  It ouses power and authority, but for me nothing like the spirituality that was apparent at Rabanal where the building was altogether less impressive as a structure, but more evocative than this cathedral.

Leon

This was a city that we arrived at after we had walked the Meseta, and travelled 300 miles.  It’s quite a big city, but you come at it from countryside which seems to continue quite a long way into the town.  The smiling lions of Leon can be found all over the city, in statues and coats of arms, and unlike Burgos, you get into the medieval part of the city through increasingly narrow streets, generally pedestrianized.  The streets radiate out from the heart of the city where there is a big square with the Cathedral dominating one side.  This is a less impressive entrance to the Cathedral than Burgos, but personally I much preferred the building to its Burgos counterpart.  It is highly decorated with all sorts of statuary, but what I really loved about it was its stained glass.  That is everywhere, and is really extraordinary.  The colours are magnificent and colour the stonework inside as the sun shines through. It makes the whole building seem lighter and less heavy than Burgos.  Some of the glass looks like William Morris designs with similar colour arrangements and beautiful patterns.  It was altogether a more appealing building for me than Burgos had been.  People visiting it in medieval times must have been blown away by the height and lightness of the building. Awe and wonder perhaps.

There is a cloister too which is also lovely, with a range of stone statues which are impressive and interesting.  There is also a piece of a decorated turret that is huge on the cloister floor and makes the scale of the building above very clear. It helps to clarify just how high up the ceiling is, and was built with no hydraulic lifts, no metal scaffolding…

Astorga

This city is built on a small hill that rises from relatively flat plain around.  It has walls around it which enclose the town and also open park spaces too, so you can look out and enjoy the view.  Of course originally you could look out and defend the town from all-comers.  There are some Roman remains that have been excavated and left on show, and these are of a very well appointed villa with hypercaust system and mosaic floor.  There is plenty of evidence all along the route of Roman roads, bridges and presence, but this was the first that we had seen of housing. 

The town has a series of large squares that link with short roads from one to the next.  They bring you along to the cathedral which is a large medieval building.  Next door is the bishop’s palace which is a building designed by Gaudi in the 1890s.  It has a remarkable doorway leading to so many amazing features inside. However like Gaudi buildings in Barcelona it did not get finished in his lifetime, and in fact took so long to build that it was never used as a Bishop’s palace – perhaps the over-the-topness had gone out of fashion by the time it was finished – so it was given to the town as a museum.  The stained glass was lovely as were the pillars that held up the first and second floors – tiled and symmetrical.  It was interesting to consider how one man’s vision had shaped the building, and then to wonder how much the design of the cathedral’s we had visited had also been the output of one man too, unknown of course, but in order to get the unity of design was that not the case?

Tree lined paths in Galicia

Most of the Camino in the first two thirds of the walk were across open country with a certain level of view of the road sweeping ahead or behind.  As we approached Galicia in the west, the paths changed and were often along tree-lined tracks with big trees on at least one side of the pathway, and often with the path lower than the ground either side of it.  Sometimes there were trees on both sides, sometimes a hedge or a wall as we got closer to the villages on the route.   These were really pretty pathways and the shade was very welcome, in our case generally from the sun, but I am sure that often it would have been from the rain in this area!

Sometimes the trees were oaks, and quite often eucalyptus which gave off a lovely smell, and occasionally the trees were pines – that was particularly true of the higher more heath-like areas. Somehow you got a real sense of the historical nature of the walk from these paths.  They felt significantly older than the more open routes, though of course they were not. I suppose that is because of the similar roads and paths in Britain which are deeply incised into the land because of the history of the route.

One of the other benefits of walking along these pathways was the quiet and absence of anything other than natural noise.  Often there was very little birdsong which might perhaps be a concern, but there was certainly a particular pleasure in walking these sections.

Supportive friends and general camaraderie

The practicalities of the Camino are such that it is an adventure that you could attempt on your own.  Accommodation works well from that point of view, and you could certainly find other pilgrims to eat with along the way.  We met a number of people who were doing just that, some with more success than others, but it made it very clear to me how valuable having support from Chris and Muriel was.

We met a woman from Holland in her early 50s who had decided to take a break from work, reduce her responsibilities there and do the Camino.  She had taken 7 weeks off, and left her family and mother to do the walk.  She was carrying her own baggage, and keen to do the whole route.  We met her at dinner in Roncevalles and subsequently at various places.  She also met two American’s and walked a lot of the route together with them, but not all of it.  They were obviously well matched for pace and interest, and had clearly enjoyed each other’s company.

There was a Scottish lass who was also walking alone.  She taught English in a school in Madrid, and so had very good Spanish which I’m sure made the experience very different.  I walked with her for an afternoon and really enjoyed her company.  She was using the walk to spend some time thinking about her future and what she was going to do with it.

We met several people from Germany, one of whom was going to be in Santiago a day or so before us, and another who left the Camino after just over a week.  The lass who left had been given a great notebook by her friends who challenged her to ‘find five clouds like animals, find a feather, sit under a tree and have a drink’ and so on, something for nearly every day. She had bad blisters and then got a cold and so booked a flight home. That seemed really sad, and I can only imagine that the conversations with her friends when she got home were probably not easy.  Whilst there were a number of us that she knew, our support was not enough to keep going. 

There were so many people who we met and really enjoyed talking with, and some who we met and didn’t talk with, but loved to see – the Japanese Happy Pilgrims were just that – always laughing and always cheerful!! 

Nearly all the people who we met and followed and re-met during the walk were people we met during the first half – before the people doing the shorter walk started walking.  There were some people that we only met once who also really left and impression.  We met a lady from Ireland who was planning to arrive in Santiago on the 26^th September on her 70^th birthday.  I’m sure she will have made it, and I really hope she enjoyed it.  There was a woman from New Zealand who was 78 and walking with her grand-daughter.  She had a fall 2 days before the end, but still made it!

There was an Australian family – grand-parents, son and grandson who were walking too.  It was great to meet up with them several times on the latter part of the trip and see them when they arrived in Santiago.

Chris, Mu and I were having a drink outside a bar one early evening, when the table of 4 women next to us struck up with the tune of ‘My old man said follow the van’ but in some Scandinavian language.  When they finished, the three of us sang the English version.  It led to a great conversation.  They were 3 Swedes who had acquired a Norwegian and were teaching her this song in Swedish.  It had a very different theme in Swedish.  Two of them had walked the Camino many times and were now just doing their favourite bits.  They NEVER invited their husbands to do this, and were clearly happy to be away for several weeks in the sun!  Perhaps their husbands enjoyed the peace too.

Walking with Chris and Mu was a pleasure and delight.  Conversation was sometimes serious, more often not.  We walked as a threesome sometimes, then Chris might go off ahead, or hang behind, or I might walk more slowly.  It was a moveable feast.  When I was ill on Day 3 and 4, the support of both of them was fantastic and enabling. We were seen as a trio by many other people, and several pilgrims commented on the energy we three had, and our clear enjoyment of the experience.  That was very rewarding as a comment I would say, as impressions gained from those outside the group are often correct.

I can honestly say that the people we met and even those who passed us with just a ‘Buen Camino’ were great examples of human beings, and reinforce a positive view of the world.

Completing it!

Of course finishing it was a highlight, but in some ways it’s also not quite the pinnacle that you might think.  I had been to Santiago before, so seeing the cathedral and its surroundings was not the surprise of the visual delight of arriving in Burgos.  And somehow I had known for a long time that I was going to make it, so there was more of a satisfaction than elation. As soon as we arrived in the cathedral precinct we met our friend from the Netherlands and the hug from her was lovely to receive.  Through the next 24 hours we met many of the people we had got to know along the way and it was always great to see them and to share the satisfaction anew. 

We did see some people – admittedly mostly cyclists – with their arms aloft, and often their bicycles too, raised in triumph, but it was mostly a rather more muted celebration than that.

The Botafumeiro and the service in Santiago

The Pilgrims mass at 12.00 noon everyday was clearly a must.  After all that was what the pilgrims in the past were aiming at. To get a seat you need to be their early, so we took our places at about 10.45am and sat with 3 groups of people that we had travelled with quite a lot.  That was definitely special. 

About 20 minutes before the service starts, a nun takes the stage to make sure that the congregation can perform the necessary sung responses appropriately.  She is a woman in her 60s perhaps, certainly not much younger I would say, but she has a beautiful, clear, bell-like voice and has complete command of the 2000 or so people in the Cathedral. She took us through the responses, making us repeat things that she was not happy with and giving us encouragement when we did a bit better.

The service involved about 12 men who moved around and each had a role, in some cases very small, but she was the centrepiece for me, and added considerably to the service.  It was a full mass, and many people went forward for that.  There was a sermon delivered in Spanish of course, which from the little we could understand was quite political, involving references to terrorists and Syria.  Then there was the part of the service that was specifically for us, and included a listing of where all the people who had registered to collect their Compostela had started – many much further away than us in Poland, the Czech Republic and so on. 

The real talking point of the service is whether or not they will swing the Bufofumeiro.  It is a huge silver censer which used to be used allegedly to combat the significant smell emanating from the unwashed pilgrims.  If that is its real purpose, then it is surprising that it is used at the end of the service; but maybe that is a characteristic of today’s practice, not how it used to be in medieval times.

Anyway it takes 8 men on the bottom of a pulley system each with their own handle to pull this object and control its flight.  It is lit and then pushed off by one church official, and then these eight men cause it to swing across the Cathedral reaching heights of about 80 feet.  It is an extraordinary spectacle, and something that pilgrims feel they have earned!! There’s a lot of controversy about the process however, as allegedly it is not swung every day, and I could sympathise with people who had made it to the service and then did not see this.  In a year when Saint James’ Day falls on a Sunday, this is considered an especially holy year, and the bufo fumeiro is swung every mass.

It sits alongside what is really quite a solemn service in a rather uncomfortable way. 

The other issue that was surprising was that the central door jamb that is made of stone and in which pilgrims have traditionally placed their hands and the sweat from countless fingers has eroded five finger holes is now covered in Perspex so that you cannot touch it anymore, but is also in a part of the cathedral that is not accessible to the public.  I did indeed put my hand and fingers in the finger holes when I last came and that was quite a remarkable experience as it is such a graphic illustration of what a million hands each year for many, many years can do.