Pilgrim Blessing

All-powerful God, You always show mercy toward those who you love and you are never far away for those who seek you.

Be with your servants on this pilgrimage and guide their way in accord with your will.

Be a companion for them along their journey, a guide at crossroads, strength in their weariness, defence before dangers, shelter on the way, shade against the heat, light in the darkness, a comforter in their discouragements, and firmness in their intentions, in order that, through your guidance, they might arrive unscathed at the end of their journey and, enriched with graces and virtues,
they might return safely home; through Jesus Christ Your Son, Who lives and reigns with You, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

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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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