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Looking down too…

As you will know if you have read my earlier post about Ironworks, I like a good drain cover. Of course this means that I often look down, as well as at all the beauty that surrounds us peregrinos on the Camino everyday. Obviously the ironwork is most often found in cities, larger towns as well as sometimes in smaller places and even villages. I have already seen a few nice examples and have only been away a week.

However today I walked alone for much of the day, it was nice and gave me lots of time to listen to nature and look down as I walked through the Navarra countryside. As a walked from the village of Cirauqui, I was totally blown-away with the astonishing ancient “cobblestone” camino beneath my feet. I tried in my head to think how to approximate the number of peregrinos that may have trodden before me … assuming

Sorry, had to stop writing as two Italians have just arrived, nothing unusual there, except they have walked from Varese, 1800km so far! They left at the start of May! Respect. My feet hurt less almost immediately!

OK, back to assuming a conservative estimate of 100 a day (averaged out over the year – no idea if this is realistic but it was the figure I went with. That is just under 40,000 per year. Today the Camino is hugely popular as it was in the middle ages but not so many years ago numbers were much less. Anyway just going back 1066 (a date that we all recall) – by my very rough calculations, this would make 35 million pilgrims. My mind was blown. This particular bit of Camino was, for me, sublimely beautiful.

Today’s walk, as I have mentioned, was a very peaceful one. All the hype about being so busy in July and August, I’d be surprised if I saw more than 30 fellow peregrinos all day, And when I arrived here at the albergue there was just a single person already here. Best of all the hospitalero offered a salt-water foot bath on arrival.

As well as the ancient highways, highlights of today were the Ermita San Miquel, the arch in Estella, Fuente del Vino at Irache and a, fortunately brief, reappearance of the fossilized reptile of the Camino!

Hasta mañana.

Practice and a very personal pilgrimage

As it is half term this week, I have again taken the opportunity to head away from the Thames Valley for a hiking training camp – again two days walking approx. 30km are planned. After the Easter Cotswold ‘camp’ I have decided to to venture to the near continent this time. Eurostar to Lille is booked, then a train from there to Kortrijk and on to Ypres (Ieper in Flemish) where I will be based for 72 hours. To make it a close as possible to a ‘Camino’ practice walk I have even booked into a different B&B for each of the two nights I am there so I don’t have the temptation of leaving stuff (or whole bag!) in the room while I walk. Plan is to simulate a camino day, up early, out walking before 7.30 and find breakfast after an hour or so. Then get the bulk of the kms in before lunch and get back to Ypres by mid-afternoon. The only thing I am unlikely to be able to re-create is the 30°+ temperatures! After two days walking in the Ypres Salient and Flanders Fields I will return to Lille for a night there and hopefully be able to squeeze in a quick visit to the world-famous velodrome on the outskirts of the city where the Paris-Roubaix cycle race finishes each April! Then take the return train to St Pancras.

Why Ypres? Back in 2014, to mark the centenary of the start of World War I, the Royal British Legion ran the Every Man Remembered campaign to try and get every soldier that died in the Great War to be commemorated by someone.

everymanremembered

I decided to see if anyone from the street I live on was ‘unremembered’. After searching the website I was suprised, humble and deeply saddened but immensely proud to discover Private Sydney Henry George, aged 33, was killed on September 24, 1917 at the Battle of the Menin Bridge Road. My debt of gratitude to Private George was made greater by the fact he and his wife lived in the house we are living in today. He is honoured at the Tyne Cot Memorial near Zonnebeke, 10km from the Menin Gate in Ypres. So this is my very personal pilgrimage.

What better location and reason for a practice camp for #MyLongWalk2019?  – I am embarking on my Camino this summer, and am able to do so because of the bravery of so many young men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice which ultimately allows us to do the thing we want today. So I decided to visit Private George’s memorial and spend two days walking and exploring Flanders Fields and the Ypres Salient, the front line of WWI with it’s poignant, emotional, thought-provoking cemeteries and memorials. I have visited the region before as an A-Level student over 30 years ago and have always wanted to return with a more mature viewpoint.

 

Daily Posts from the Camino de Santiago

Well here we go! 

From now till the summer I will be getting prepared for a massive challenge. This blog will chronicle the training walks and some of the interesting things I discover in the lead up to July.

Then join me from July 21st when I set off on My Long Walk 2019 – 792 kilometers from  St-Jean-Pied-de-Port in southern France over the Pyrenees and across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia

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