Camino de Santiago

Starting at the August bank holiday I have been allowed to take a two month sabbatical to walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain. The Camino is an old pilgrimage route that leads to the tomb of the apostle St James. In the 1980’s this pilgrimage/walk started to become popular again and now thousands of people walk it each year. The walk starts in St Jean Pied de Port in France and proceeds westward for 800km to Santiago De Compostela. The route is marked with clam shells to show pilgrims the way, the clam shell has been the sign of the pilgrim since the middle ages. I’ll be walking 20-30km a day for 6 weeks, carrying everything I need for the journey.

There are plenty of ‘Albergues’ (hostels) along the way so I won’t have to carry a tent, there are also plenty of place to find food so wont be carrying to much of that but it’ll still be close to a 10kg pack, some of you may have seen me practicing with it while walking in most days now.

This is a wonderful opportunity and I am very grateful to Applicable (the company I work for) for allowing me the time. How often in our modern lives do we get the chance to just do one thing for a prolonged period of time. Six weeks of putting one foot in front of another, a chance to relax, think and pray. I am really not sure what to expect apart from sore feet and that experience of doing something so different is really exciting. I intend to keep this blog going while I am away in case any of you want to know where I am or what I am doing.

If you want to see where I am you can also follow my progress at https://www.polarsteps.com/JohnScanlon/2117389-camino-de-santiago