Out for a walk - or can't I just go on Camino now!

If you've been on Camino then you've felt it - in a difficult time you recall the times on the Way, the people who you met and the ease of doing nothing but walking (yes, there were blisters and other troubles but at times like these we don't remember them do we?) and you want nothinmg more than to be back on the Camino.

Image from http://johnssketchjournal.blogspot.co.uk/2013_04_01_archive.html (check out this Blogger's sketches for his Camino in May 2013 - they are gorgeous - John Wright is a talented guy!)

Or Spring comes with a certain change somehow in the quality of the light, a slightly warmer day with only a bit of breeze and you just know that this would be a great day for walking, for being THERE on the Way.

Because once you have been there it never really leaves you does it? That desire to walk that can just about be satisfied by taking a stroll around town or into your local countryside, that desire to shout out 'Buen Camino! as you pass other people or to nip into a bar for a quick Cafe con leche or Cola Cau. The feeling that yes there may be 200 other people sleeping in this albergue but this bunk is your space and if you unpack your bag again you can take out your clothes and smell the Camino again - that brown disinfectant that comes in the yellow bottles, hand washed clothes and the other things that you have never quite been able to identify but that you know the smell of so well.

And at times like all of these you want nothinmg more than to pin a note on your door and to set off into the known unknown and meet new people, face some challenges, learn from your experiences and yes, to have some fun.

Buen Camino everyone, I think I'll just go for a quick walk around the block!

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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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