This post is about some travel plans I wasn't intending to announce for awhile. But because in the last few weeks I've stumbled across several news stories about the very same journey I'm planning, I feel compelled to write about it now. I guess I'm concerned that in the months to come, more and more stories about this journey will appear in the media, especially the American media, and it will seem as if my plans are merely part of a tourist trend, rather than a personal dream.
The journey I'm planning is the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage walk once popular in medieval days that follows a path to the city of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain. In Santiago is where it's long been said the remains of the apostle St. James lie. Hence, the name El Camino de Santiago, or the Way of St. James. In the olden days the Camino was nearly as popular a pilgrimage as routes to Rome or Jerusalem. Christians across Europe set out from their homes on foot or on horseback (or on mule) and made their way to one of the several main routes to Santiago, joining up with other pilgrims and staying in hospices or churches, which granted them special protection. The journey was usually undertaken for penance and took however long it took a person to walk from his or her front door in Germany or France or Belgium or where-have-you to the great cathedral where St. James rests in Santiago de Compostela.
Like many medieval rituals and practices, the Camino was largely abandoned for many centuries--in the wake of fears about the spread of the Black Death that kept people from traveling and then the spread of Protestantism and Enlightenment views across Europe. In recent decades the Camino has seen a resurgence though, and the number of pilgrims who undertake it each year is currently in the thousands. These days most pilgrims follow the Camino Frances route, which begins just over the border in southern France and takes pilgrims through the Pyrenees and across the northern top of Spain to Galicia on the west coast. The Camino Frances route is about 780km long (nearly 490 miles) and generally takes about a month to walk in its entirety.
I first heard about the Camino a couple years ago while reading Colm Toibin's book The Sign of the Cross: Travels in Catholic Europe. I'll write more about Toibin's impressions, and other authors' I've read, another time. I also briefly mentioned the Camino in my post in March on my pilgrimage hike up Croagh Patrick in Ireland in 2009. Now in just the last few weeks I've come across articles about the Camino in both the British Guardian and BBC Travel. The reason for the recent hub-bub seems to be a new film coming out that centers on the Camino, "The Way" directed by Emilio Estevez and starring his father Martin Sheen.
The movie has already been screened in Santiago and released in the U.K. and Ireland. It's set to be released in the U.S. at the end of September. I think its release in the U.S. will certainly bring more awareness of the Camino to Americans, who seem a little more oblivious to the Camino's existence than are many Europeans.
And me? I admit, I want to beat the onslaught of my fellow Americans. And I want to undertake the Camino for a personal purpose of healing. I may do the walk as a way to raise money for a particular charity. And instead of beginning in St. Jean Pied de Port in France like most pilgrims, I'd like to begin farther east in southern France at the shrine at Lourdes, where I also visited in 2009 after my climb up Croagh Patrick. That would add another 80 miles onto the journey. I don't know if that's biting off more than I can chew. But the Camino itself is biting off a lot. And anyway, that is my intention. I hope to see it through by year's end.
Anyone who reads this who has done any portion or all of the Camino is welcome to leave a comment describing their experience or offering advice. And anyone in Ireland or Britain who has seen the movie "The Way" who'd like to comment upon it is welcome too.
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