Cutting out parts of the Camino

On my first Camino I started from St Jean, got to Logrono and then took a bus to Leon as I had very tight time constraints on when I had to arrive in Santiago.

Last year me and Becky cut out 30km or so before Burgos partially because we were worried about time (which we needn't have been seeing as we had 5 days to n Santiago) and partially because we had heard that this section wasn't very nice. We wondered as we waited for the bus if we would later regret this decision but don't - the day we arrived in Santiago we met a guy we remain friends with who introduced us to the group of people who became our 'Camino family' who we would have had no chance of meeting if we had walked that 30km.

One of these guys was in Santiago this year when we arrived and we were able to see him for an hour. He told us about the special certificate produced this year to celebrate the 800th anniversary of Saint Francis' pilgrimage to Santiago; without seeing him again we wouldn't have known about this certificate.

Don't worry if you need to cut parts of your Camino out - it's your pilgrimage and you complete it however feels right to you and wonderful things can happen if you do.

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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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