Our Walk Along the Camino Frances

How Has the Camino Francés Changed in 10 Years? “Thus says the Lord: ‘… ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.’”   Jeremiah 6:16   Transformations and Changes on the Way When we first walked the Camino, it was along the Camino Francés route more than a decade ago. At the time, we didn’t yet realize how profoundly it would shape our relationship with pilgrimage and the long trails that followed. Reading these early journals now, I see the wonder, naivety, and honest discovery of that first day leaving Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port as we stepped onto the Way of St. James en route to Orisson and eventually Santiago de Compostela.     In the years and 10 years that have followed since our first walk to Santiago, we have trekked and explored around the world on  trails such as:   Ontario’s Bruce Trail Newfoundland’s East Coast Trail Completed the 28,000 km-long Trans Canada Trail   Via Podiensis / GR65 Cami...

Pilgrimage Advice  Camino Frances Tips for Pilgrims We have now been back home in Canada for almost a month. Home is wonderful, relaxing and welcoming for about two or three days. Then one night you wake up thinking (hoping?) you are still in an albergue, or your body becomes frustrated by sitting at a desk rather than hiking 20, 30 or 40 km a day, and you begin to look up long-distance hiking trails around the world, and you realize (in the words of Robert Service) "you've become the worst of the worst," and you're hooked. You are a Camino addict, and you begin the plan for next year's trek two weeks after having finished the "impossible task" of hiking 800 km. So here we are, and we have begun looking at a range of possibilities, including the Camino Norte, the Portuguese Camino, or one of the routes through France (Le Puy and Arles are the front runners). However, with all of our planning and wishful thinking aside, we also realized that we had s...

“Our life is frittered away by detail… Simplify, simplify.”   Henry David Thoreau, Walden   What Is the Hardest Part of the Camino Francés?   Whenever we talk about walking the Camino Francés, people tend to ask the same questions. What was the hardest part? What was the easiest? Which section was the most beautiful? They are understandable questions, particularly for those considering or planning their first pilgrimage, but they are also highly subjective. The answers depend on the season, the weather, a pilgrim’s physical condition, the weight of their backpack, the people they meet, what their own interests are, and what they hoped to find when they set out.   For some pilgrims, the hardest part of the Camino Francés will be the first day’s climb from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and the crossing of the Pyrenees. Others will point to the heat and exposure of the Meseta, the ascent to O Cebreiro, an illness or injury, or the built-up exhaustion that develops after week...

Home after the Camino Frances After the Pilgrimage to Santiago We were awake at 5 AM out of habit, but we both sat in the hotel room until 8 AM, uncertain what to do with the extra time. By 9 AM we had enjoyed a brief breakfast in the lobby, checked out, and boarded the shuttle to the Charles de Gaul airport. Checked in, we were on the 11:30 AM flight from Paris to Montreal before changing aircraft for a short jump from Montreal to Toronto.  Our flights were again long, but safe and uneventful. Without the excitement of the Camino keeping us awake as we crossed the Atlantic this time, we both slept well and arrived in Toronto at 8 PM.  Here we again gathered our luggage and waited for the Airlink bus, which took us from Toronto to the small town we currently call home. We arrived home at midnight. Here it did not take long for the silence of our own home in our own neighbourhood to get to us. Ironically, after weeks of being frustrated by the noises of others at night, a...