Camino Ingles - Day 0, Sunday 9th April

There is always a lot of travelling to do before you can start your walk on Camino, originally I would have set off from home to a port and from there sailed to Ferrol or a Coruna but in this age I got up at 5 in the morning for the drive down to the airport with a quick stop at McDonald's for breakfast.

There was a bit of excitement/concern when the bus from the airport car park to the airport broke down but after 15 minutes of the driver trying to coax the juddering bus back on the road we were on our way again.

After going through security we bought Boots sarnies and then boarded our 'plane.

We had a couple of hours wait at Santiago bus station for our bus to Ferrol and so went and found a bar where I enjoyed my first Cola Cau of this Camino!

The bus arrived just in time for us to get to the Tourist Information centre and get our first sello and then we set off to find our hotel finding ourselves in the company of seven American ladies who had been on the same bus as us and were staying in the same hotel. They though had had a much longer journey to get to Ferrol and so would not start walking until the day after us.

Having dumped our bags in our room we decide to walk down to the front and follow the Camino back towards our hotel so that we would not walk that section again in the morning. Walking down Ferrol's streets we had the thrumming of a drum and happened to come across an Easter parade which we watched for about fourty minutes.

We hurried to the front before it became too dark and posed for photos at the Camino's start before heading back to our hotel, stopping to buy some chips from a kebab shop on the way.

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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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