One of the many churches that can be found along El Camino de Santiago / the Road of St. James. Courtesy image.
Stacey "Vagabonding Chica" Wittig
By Stacey Wittig / Vagabonding Chica – Travel Writer
Discovery is what I love most about traveling. When I have a tentative agenda, I have time to stumble upon new places. Once on foreign soil, I seek out events or hideaways that aren’t on the tourist map. Many times, I find myself returning to spend more time digging into the newfound experience.
Such a thing happened in 1995 when I visited a friend who was studying in Granada, Spain. I visited over Easter break – Spaniards’ Semana Santa – and crashed an apartment shared by too many students. It was OK; most of them were leaving for a week to hike El Camino de Santiago.
El Camino de Santiago – the Road of Saint James – is a little-known byway trod by pilgrims of the Middle Ages. I had never heard of it. Famous people of old, including St. Francis of Assisi, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella walked the path. Even contemporary celebrities like Martin Sheen, Emilio Estevez, Shirley MacLaine and Pope John Paul II made the trek in quest of answers to age-old spiritual questions. I knew that one day I would go back to Spain and make my own journey along this intriguing route.
El Camino is a network of ancient pilgrimage routes throughout Western Europe. The most famous of these sacred ways is the Camino Francés, which stretches across northern Spain. Along the 500-mile path, there are thirty-three ‘etapas’ between Saint Jean Pied de Port (on the French border) to Santiago de Compostela near the Atlantic coast. An ‘estapa’ is a stage of the route. Individual stages average 15 miles, a day’s walk for the average pilgrim. Pilgrims of the Middle Ages plodded along this route to venerate the remains of St. James the Greater.
Christian tradition claims James the Greater and several followers traveled to Spain to spread the good news of Jesus. On a trip back to Jerusalem, Herod beheaded Santiago (Acts 12:2). James’s followers carried his body back to Spain by boat. They buried his body in Northern Spain during the first century C.E.
Backpacks are often a travel necessity for many trekking El Camino de Santiago. Courtesy image.
In the Middle Ages, pilgrims traveled to sites of relics of the saints, believing that by getting near to or touching the relics, they would receive spiritual power. The three main pilgrimage routes to Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago de Compostela were dotted with enormous cathedrals designed for huge pilgrim audiences and with refugios to house the wandering seekers. Many of those cathedrals and refugios stand today.
On my first El Camino trek in 2005, I met modern pilgrims from all over the world who were walking for various reasons. Many were seeking answers to problems. Some were wrestling with life-changing decisions. Others were on religious pilgrimages. A French woman said it well: “The El Camino is like a washing machine for your brain.”
Walking El Camino gives you time, a place and like-minded people to help you listen for a word from God.
You take on certain expectations when you become an El Camino pilgrim. A church brochure picked up along the way says it best:
The Camino is not for simple tourism; the physical effort is worthy of higher things.
On the Camino you can seek and find yourself.
On the Camino you can find brotherhood through shared vision, projects and plans.
You climb a stairway of values, the good and the bad.
Getting to know yourself, you get to know Christ.
The Camino was born from the faith of our ancestors…
The Camino is universal; throughout the world there are those who think it is better to exclude others; the Camino shows us otherwise.
El Camino de Santiago ushers you through some of the most breath-taking countryside in Europe. You experience firsthand Roman-built roads, 11th century cathedrals and the warm hospitality of the Spanish people.
— Stacey “Vagabonding Chica” Wittig is an award-winning travel writer based in Munds Park. “LIKE” her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/Wittigwriter
IF YOU GO:
> To learn more about El Camino go to http://bit.ly/6dM1m9