By Marla Laine Brown:
About
By Allan Brown:
I’m overdue in introducing ourselves to you all. Marla and I are from Orange County, California. We are both in our 50s and have been planning to walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain for a year now. We saw the movie The Way, with Martin Sheen, and decided it would be a unique 4-week adventure for us.
The Camino is an old pilgrim route across northern Spain. We will be staying in hostels for the most part. The hostels are private, state and church operated. There may be hostels with 12 beds or 180 beds in a monastery. I’m sure we will hit a hotel or two also. For the most part, it will be small villages and towns.
Some of the “big” towns will be Pamplona, Leon, Burgos, and Santiago.
We are flying to London and then on to Barcelona. From there, a train and a taxi to St. Jean Pied de Port, France, near the border of Spain.
What is the Camino de Santiago?
By Marla Laine Brown:
El Camino de Santiago, also known as The Way of Saint James, is a historic pilgrimage route spanning northern Spain, culminating at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. With a legacy dating back over a millennium, it held immense significance during medieval times as one of the most prominent Christian pilgrimages. Legends whisper that the remains of Saint James lie within the Cathedral’s sacred grounds. Moreover, evidence suggests the existence of a pre-Christian route traversing the land. Today, El Camino de Santiago stands as a prominent European cultural route and a UNESCO World Heritage site. Other notable pilgrimages include the Via Francigena, which leads to Rome and the Tomb of Saint Peter, and the pilgrimage route to Jerusalem, culminating at the Holy Sepulcher of Christ.
Our camino will begin in St. Jean Pied de Port, France. We will hike westward over the Pyrenees mountains, crossing into Spain and ultimately reaching Santiago de Compostela.
The Pilgrims Passport
By Marla Laine Brown:
The pilgrim’s passport is the identification that is used along the Camino to prove that you are a pilgrim and that you have walked and stayed at various places along the way.
It’s a simple card with a space to collect stamps from hostels and albergues. We received our passport from American Pilgrims on the Camino.
The Scallop Shell
By Allan Brown:
The scallop shell that is the symbol of the Camino is thought to come from two sources. One is that the outward points/lines of the scallop all converge into a single point, as do the pilgrims coming from many places arriving in Santiago. Another, cooler version, is that a ship sank and a sailor rose from the sea covered with scallops.
Camino de Santiago 