Walking the Camino de Santiago in one’s own way, is called “Your Camino”. There are many ways to walk it. The traditional way is to walk from town to town without room reservations under the belief that the the Camino will provide. In addition, the pilgrim caries everything on their back and stays in Albergues, communal hostels with large rooms with bunkbeds.
Lets just say that is not Chris’s and John’s Way.
We have been wanting to walk the Camino de Santiago for a few years and began planning in earnest a year ago. In lieu of ourselves booking thirty-five hotels we hired a company, Gali Wonders, to book the rooms. Each of our towns are predetermined which allows us to know the exact distance we will walk each day. In addition Gali Wonders will transfer our luggage to the next hotel for us and we will just walk with day packs. The average walk each day is around 12 miles so each day will be a walk ranging from six to eight hours of travel. The knowledge that we have a nice hotel waiting for us will ease our minds and bodies.
Our trip starts on September 3rd with our flight from Seattle to Barcelona. We spend two days in Barcelona and hopefully the anti-tourist locals leave us alone. We begin our spiritual pilgrimage in Lourdes, France to walk the Marian torchlight procession that happens every evening at 9:00 pm to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary. From Lourdes we travel to a small town, St. Jean Pied de Port, also in France, to begin the Camino de Santiago along the route called Camino Frances.
The Camino Frances is a 500 mile pilgrimage walk that starts in France and then crosses over the top of Spain all the way to the town of Santiago de Compostela. We will take 42 days to complete the walk with a day of rest every seven days or so. Everyone who starts the Camino Frances in St. Jean Pied de Port is somewhat apprehensive for the very first walk from St. Jean Pied de Port in France to the town of Roncesvalles in Spain. We will be on the Napoleon Route which is a sixteen mile hike that crosses the Pyrenees Mountains. The elevation gain is 4,888 feet and it will most likely take us over nine hours to complete. Quite a welcome to the Camino.
First Day Hike- Saint Jean Pied-de-Port to Roncesvalles
We are scheduled to complete the Camino on October 18th and will then travel to Seville for three days of relaxation and then a two day trip to Granada, visiting friends who have just moved there from Santa Fe. On October 23rd we head back to Barcelona for our flight home.