Pilgrimage - The Road to Santiago Episode 2

The BBC's 'Pilgrimage: The Road to Santiago continues this Friday at 9 as the seven celebrities [Neil Morrissey (actor), Debbie McGee (entertainer), Ed Byrne (a comedian), Heather Small (singer), Kate Bottley (vicar), Raphael Rowe (journalist) and JJ Chalmers (presenter)] travel from Navarre to the last 100km of the route.

Some of the group - looks like they may be visiting O Cebreiro perhaps to find out about the Priest Don Elías Valiña Sampedro - image from https://www.mirror.co.uk/travel/europe/pilgrimage-road-to-santiago-route-12200011

In this episode the group get to the wine fountain at Irache and there is an image on the site of Raphael on a horse so at least part of this episode must be spent on horseback.

Image from http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09x0ynf

Ed meets a local man somewhere on the route who believes money is the root of all evil and gives away walking sticks to Pilgrims who pass by.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2018/12/pilgrimage says that Heather is offended by a local helper at a hostel - in the preview of this week's episode the group was shown sleeping outside so this may be the reason why.

The group also reaches Cruz de Ferro (the Iron cross) where Debbie McGee leaves a stone with her late husband's (Paul Daniels) name on it and Raphael also leaves a stone here.

On last week's episode 24km was walked from St Jean Pied du Port to Roncenvalles and some distance was walked to the Church at Eunate. According to Kate the group walked 135km of the route (http://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2018-03-16/pilgrimage-the-road-to-santiago-bbc2-debbie-mcgee-kate-bottley-interview/) (in 15 days making an average of nine kilometres walled a day) and they walked all of the last 100km meaning that in episode two they must walk only about ten kilometres.

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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 t

On the Camino

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