Camino de Santiago: Part 1

Camino de Santiago: me, Anne and Saint James of Compostela

Introduction

There's no discouragement
Shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent
To be a pilgrim. - John Bunyan

Life, they say, is more about the journey than the destination. I must admit that this is an attitude that I have come to apply to literal journeys as much as metaphorical ones. I love travelling; I prefer to take my time, seeing no reason why the fastest journey should necessarily be considered the best; I tend to be philosophical about delay, and I dislike being hurried. While aware of the necessity of getting from A to B, I am quite prepared to go via M, Q, or Y if M is likely to be more scenic, Q less crowded, or Y known to possess a feature of greater than average architectural merit. As with life, I am confident that I will arrive at my destination sooner or later, and if I am required to make the journey at all I would rather I made the most of it.

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Camino de Santiago: Part 2

Preparation

Give me my scallop shell of quiet,
My staff of faith to walk upon,
My scrip of joy, immortal diet,
My bottle of salvation,
My gown of glory, hope's true gage,
And thus I'll take my pilgrimage.
The Passionate Man's Pilgrimage – Walter Raleigh

As it happened, we walked it in 2007. As we approached July 2006 and graduation, it became clear that neither of us was going to find a particularly interesting job for the next year, so, prompted by Heloise, we brought the scheme forward and joined the Confraternity of Saint James that summer. We considered leaving from Exeter and aiming to arrive in Santiago for Easter 2007. This proved to be impracticable – Easter was too early in the year – but the idea of walking in the spring remained attractive. The idea of leaving from Exeter also failed to fit into our time scheme: we were obliged to delay our departure until after my father’s 65th birthday party, which was after the end of term, rendering any such plan pointless. Having consulted the CSJ guides, we had concluded that the summer would not be congenial, with the weather too hot and the Camino too crowded, while the autumn of 2006 seemed too soon and that of 2007 too far away.

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Camino de Santiago: Part 3

Breakfast in Caen, Lunch in Paris and Supper in Saint-Palais (Crossing to and across France, 19th-21st March)

"The man, therefore, read it, and looking upon Evangelist very carefully, said, Whither must I fly? Then said Evangelist, pointing with his finger over a very wide field, Do you see yonder wicket-gate? The man said, No. Then said the other, Do you see yonder shining light? He said, I think I do. Then said Evangelist, Keep that light in your eye, and go up directly thereto: so shalt thou see the gate; at which, when thou knockest, it shall be told thee what thou shalt do." - The Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan


The Solent ferry was called Saint Cecilia, which was, we thought, rather appropriate for a pair of choral singers. It was a vehicle ferry; the foot passengers walked on via the same gangway. Anne and I could well have been the only foot passengers, and the only vehicles were a few cars and a couple of lorries. The cabin was all but deserted and we spent the crossing grinning nervously at each other and making banal remarks like ‘Well, this is it’.

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Camino de Santiago: Part 4

The Hobbits' First Sight of the Misty Mountains (Saint-Palais to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, 21st-22nd March)

'He often used to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep and every path was its tributary. "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door," he used to say. "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to."' - The Fellowship of the Ring, J. R. R. Tolkien



My first discovery upon preparing to set out was that I had stapled the pages referring to the French stage of the Camino into the guidebook for the Spanish leg in the wrong order. Even once I had straightened this confusion out the way out of the town was not immediately apparent until Anne spotted a yellow sticker on a road sign. It was a waymarking placed there by a Dutch cycling organisation, but it served the purpose admirably.

We were soon heading out of Saint-Palais, passing as we did so a house lavishly decorated with scallops and other Jacobean memorabilia. A stone propped in front of the proclaimed ‘849km → St JACQUES’. It may or may not have been accurate, but at this early stage in the Camino we had not yet learned to distrust distance markings. As we looked at it a man came out onto the balcony of the house and called ‘Bonne route!’

‘Merci!’, we called back, and continued up the hill.

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Camino de Santiago: Part 5

Excelsior! (Over the Pyrenees, 23rd-25th March)

NB. I quote extensively from Longfellow's poem Excelsior! in this section. The complete work can be found here.

'High are the hills, the valleys dark and deep,
Grisly the rocks, and wondrous grim the steeps.'
- The Song of Roland


Breakfast at 55 rue de la Citadelle

Jeannine presided over breakfast the next morning. Our French companions were going no further; they would return when the weather had improved enough to make the Route Napoleon feasible. Michel presented everyone in the refugio with a little medallion of the Virgin. Meanwhile, Brantz (I regret that I never knew how this was spelt), a Slovenian with dreadlocks and a magnificent leather hat, asked if he could join us for the day’s walk. We agreed readily.

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