On the Camino

Today was a day of traveling starting from home and arriving in Santiago - the flights used to be early in the morning which left enough time to travel onwards but now that flights are later in the day arriving at Santiago was as far as we could get today.

The Camino Portgues runs from Lisbon to Santiago a distance of 620km although most pilgrims choose to start in Porto which is 230km from Santiago. The route runs close to the coast (indeed there is a possibility to walk along the coast for some of the route) and the route leads you through Barcelos (where there is another version of the Pilgrim and the Cockerel story), Tui and Padron (famous for its peppers and as the spot where the stone boat carrying Saint James was supposed to have landed). Historically this was the route used by Queen Isabel of Portugal when she made a Pilgrimage to Santaigo. Image from http://www.gregspurgin.com/walking-the-camino-in-portugal/  (a blog written by a couple who walked from Lisbon to Santiago)

Using the statistics available from the Cathedral in Santiago ( http://peregrinossantiago.es/eng/pilgrims-office/statistics/ ) it is possible to look at how Pilgrim numbers are increasing overall by mode of transport from 2004 (when the records on this site begin) to 2015: (Remember 2004 and 2010 were Holy Years)

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. S callops also serve a practical purpose for medieval pilgrims as it is the correct size for getting water to drink or to use as a small bowl to eat their food from. There are also two stories about this shell which both involve the story that James did some preaching in Spain after Jesus had died and why the shell became so important: 1.After James was killed his disciples took him to be buried at the place that we now call Santiago.     But not far from Spain’s coast a heavy storm hit the ship and his body was lost in the ocean.     Some time later his body was