Walking the Camino de Santiago
Preparations and planning.
One after another in León we kept running into old friends from much earlier in our Camino. Here is Francine with Matthias, the German we met on day one. He was spending a couple of days in the city resting from an injury. He’s entitled – he walked all the way from his door in Köln. We also met up […]
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Think this is a stream? A river? Think again. This is the Camino. This particular stretch was under several feet of water, and we had to divert to walking on the edge of the highway. Once, you know, we backtracked several hundred feet and then jumped across a ditch full of water. Date: 17 April 2016 Place: Between Calzadilla de […]
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We had breakfast in a brand-spanking new albergue / restaurant in Hontanas. With the explosion in pilgrim numbers over the past decades, we saw many new or refurbished places on the Camino. It still isn’t a candle to the number of hostels and inns of the High Middle Ages. Of course, in those days you also had to walk back […]
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Many apologies: there was no Camino Photo of the Day yesterday. My day was clouded under the influence of a migraine, and nothing useful could be done. Today, however, you have the Blessed Sacrament Chapel of Burgos Cathedral, where daily evening Mass is celebrated. After a pizza (!) dinner, this is where we went. In addition to the main altar […]
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We are spending the night in Sahagún. For those of you who are fans of “Babylon Five”, this will sound uncomfortably close to “Z’ha’dum“. It was a beautiful day for walking – cool and sunny. A welcome change from the recent weeks. We had our second breakfast at the Albergue Jacques de Molay in the village of Terradillos de Templarios, […]
» Read moreFor the past two days walking out ofBurgos, we have been entering into the Meseta. This is the vast plateau that sits in the center of Spain. We will be walking this for about the next week or so. And it is flat. Well, the top is flat, anyway. Most of the towns are located in deep valleys carved out […]
» Read moreWe have been experiencing a protracted zone of low bandwidth and little Wi-Fi. This makes it extremely difficult to post photos. In particular, I am something like 400 photos behind in updating my Flickr account. Weirdly, it is much easier to upload photos to Facebook. The bandwidth problem has also made updating the blog somewhat sporadic. For this, I apologize. […]
» Read moreTwo nights ago we stayed at the Parroquial Albergue San Juan Bautista in Grañón, and last night at the private Albergue San Roque in Villambísta. Two more different experiences in pilgrim hostels would be difficult to imagine. Both did feature communal meals, which I very much enjoy. Not many albergues do this, which is too bad, since it fosters camaraderie […]
» Read moreTo pole or not to pole? How to pole? Do you pole? Pole to Pole? Staff. Hook. Crozier. Stave. Cane. Scepter. Caduceus. I like my walking sticks. They’re made by Easton and telescope to different sizes. They have rock-lock on them which makes them simple to adjust. They’re my most cherished hiking accessory and if I were to lose them I would be very, […]
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This post has been in edit for 1055 days. It was one week until my first Camino. I was in full on panic mode. Now that I am in full on panic mode being less than a week away from departure, I feel as though I’m not prepared. I understand that this is a normal pre-Camino stage. I’m mainly concerned […]
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