Pilgrims' Way to Canterbury Passport/Credential

Ready for walking some of the Pilgrims' way to Canterbury I've designed a Pilgrim's passport for me and Dad - there's no where official to get a stamp but there are Youth Hostels in Dorking (Tanners Hatch off Ranmore Road in Surrey, 1km off the route) and Canterbury (54 Dover Road) as well as several in London. In addition most post offices have their own stamps (they are rather plain but they were always willing to stamp the passports me and Dad made and used on the Coast to Coast walk) and you may find other places as well with a stamp or who will be willing to write the name of their shop/pub/hotel/restaurant etc and date your passport.

The pictures below show how I put the passport together (this is a rough version that I made to see how well it worked hence the pencil lines on it).

The box of the second from the right page is ready for the Cathedral stamp in Canterbury - as the starting point for the Pilgrimage for Rome they are used to stamping passports for Pilgrims and so, I hope, will be happy to stamp this passport as well - I'll find out in the summer (this stamp is held in the Information Centre within the Cathedral's precincts). The scallop shell is really a symbol for the Pilgrimage to Santiago but is fairly universally recognised for all Pilgrims.

I hope this is enough space for stamps!

I've included JPGs of these in case anyone else is interested in them - if you put these into word and then make them the size of the full page then it should work - I've never tried anything like this before so if there's a problem let me know and I'll try again!

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The Camino Primitivo

The Camino Primitivo (or the Original Way) is reportedly the very first Camino Way to Santiago in the 9 th century when most of Spain was under the control of the Moors and it runs from near the city of Ovideo in Asturias as it starts in Villavicosa (which also lies on the Camino Norte so many people follow this Way from Basque city of San Sebastian (Donosti in Basque) or in from the French border at Irun ( this route then hugs the Bay of Biscay passing through Guernica, Bilbao, Santander, Llanes before going under the Picos de Europa and then heads along the coast to Ovideo) before branching off onto the Primitivo which goes across the mountains and through the city of Lugo before joining the Frances at Melide. The route is 320km long. Image taken from https://viaalpina2013.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/camino-del-norte-camino-primitivo/

Symbols of the three main Christian Pilgrimages

The symbol of the Pilgrim to Santiago is the Scallop shell of which many can be found on the coast of Galicia and it is actually a symbol of the Pilgrimage (and has become a symbol of other Christian Pilgrimages too) partly because you could find the shell easily there and so could go back home and show it off as proof that you had done the Pilgrimage. It has also been included in carvings in some Churches.

Pilgrims' Trail to Saint Michels Mont, France

I have only walked two of the Camino routes (the Frances and Portuguese) and still want to try many of the others and yet I am also finding other Pilgrimage routes that I want to walk - I did the Pilgrims' Way in the summer which starts from Winchester which is also the starting point for the Pilgrims' Trail a 155 mile route that finishes at Mont St Michel in Normandy, France. The cult of saint Michel was popular in Britain from the 9th century and the Pilgrims walking this way were called Miquelots and many Pilgrims on their way to Santiago. The route is marked by green way markers in Hampshire taking walkers from Winchester to Bishop's Waltham to Southwick and then to Portsmouth where ferries are caught to France and Way markers become blue. Tradition says that, in 709 Saint Michael the Archangel appeared to the bishop of Avranches, Saint Aubert, and told him to build a chapel in his honour on the island. The bishop obeyed and soon sent a group of monks over...

On the Camino

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