The Route

Many roads lead to Santiago de Compostela. In the middle ages it was the third most important Christian site after Jerusalem and Rome. Irish pilgrims would traditionally have set sail from St James' Gate in Dublin and landed in Ferrol or Coruna and walked the 100 km to Santiago along the Camino Ingles. We completed this in 2007 as our first taste of the Camino experience. Last year we walked from Porto on the Camino Portugues, and this time I am attempting the last part of the Camino Frances or French Way which has Tour Saint-Jacques in Paris as one of its start points.

Flying from Dublin to Bilbao on May 4th, I will check out the new Guggenheim Museum and overnight in the city, before taking a local bus to Sahagun in the province of Leon - a journey of 4.5 hours. Sahagun was formerly an extremely important town on the pilgrim route, boasting the most influential Benedictine monastery outside of Cluny in Burgundy. Its scriptorium produced many priceless manuscripts, and many famous saints and scholars were educated here. In the 1400s it had achieved university status. However, it began to fall out of favour in the 18th century, and was devastated by fire in the 19th. All that remains today is the 12th century chapel of San Manico, but there are many other notable churches and public buildings in the city. I will stay at a hostel run by the Benedictine sisters at the convent of Santa Cruz, and claim the first stamp or sello on my Pilgrims' Passport, a vital document which will entitle me to accommodation at pilgrim hostels all along the route for a very modest sum.

From Sahagun I will walk for 20 days, varying my daily distance from 16 km on the first day to the longest stretch of 26km two days from Santiago. Some stages will be along quiet country paths, while on others there will be a good deal of road waking with attendant traffic. Some days the going will be fairly level, but on days 7 and 8 I will get to an altitude of 1,155m and 1,505m respectively which will be fairly strenuous for me! In Galicia I will expect rain but hope it doesn't pour too often. As this is a Holy Year when the feast of St James, July 25th, falls on a Sunday, there will be many pilgrims en route, but hopefully at this relatively early time of the year the hostels will not be full. There will be long hours of light, and generally I will start walking early and try to arrive at my destination by early afternoon, to grab a decent bunk and do some washing/internetting/exploring before an early bed. Lights out are generally at 10.00 pm, and fellow pilgrims are good about keeping silent after that.

So for now it's back to training, as I try keep up 2 - 3 hours walking daily, though at this stage without a backpack!