Pilgrimage: The Road to Santiago episode 3

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)] journey on the Camino finishes this Friday at nine as they walk the last 100km of the French way to Santiago.

Image from http://www.irishnews.com/lifestyle/2018/03/12/news/pilgrimage-the-road-to-santiago-we-had-the-greatest-time-say-seven-celebs-1271609/

The BBC website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09xy8f7) says that, 'Priest Kate still dreads the walk, but non-believer Raph is beginning to enjoy the opportunity it is giving him to appreciate his surroundings,' and also tells us that they stop at a river to talk to the man who runs the British Pilgrimage Trust (http://britishpilgrimage.org/) Guy Hayward. This is a group that promotes Pilgrimage in Britain so maybe they would have done better to ask someone from The Confraternity of Saint James (https://www.csj.org.uk/) to come and talk to the group, we will have to see on Friday.

Guy explains the meaning of River Pilgrimage and Ed and Kate 'take a dip' in the river.

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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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