How does a random tea room conversation turn into an epic 1000km adventure on the other side of the world?
Well it starts with a question at the sink. A work colleague, Rachel, had recently returned from a trekking holiday in Italy. I had been reading about the European Peace Walk, but had found a lot of negative reviews. Said reviews did however mention an alternative walking option - the Camino. A quick google search revealed that the Camino de Santiago was the pilgrim’s trail followed throughout the Middle Ages and beyond with trails racing across Europe to the Cathedral de Santiago which is said to house the bones of St James, hence the alternate name - St James’ Way.
After asking about her holiday, I asked if she had walked on any of the Camino trails and she had trekked some of the Italian way. I told her I was interested in walking the Camino and here we are 18 months later preparing to walk from St Jean Pied de Pont to Santiago.
Our journey starts in September 2020 and will involve 42 days of walking, cycling and resting as we cross the French Alps and travel across northern Spain on our pilgrim’s journey.
Neither of us is particularly religious, in fact I am very firmly atheist and Rachel is critical of organised religion, so while many describe the pilgrimage as a spiritual journey, ours is really a chance to explore a beautiful part of the world.
I’m also going to use this opportunity to (try to) learn Spanish. So along with doing some reading on our daily destinations to discover the must-sees and dos each day, I have hopes of a second language learning as well.
I’ll post again soon with our itinerary to give you an idea of our daily travels and build on it with new info as I find it and discover more. Until next time, adiós.
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