Follow in the footsteps of Celts and Christians (part 1 or 3)

Walking the Camino de Santiago leads you along the camino francés from St-Jean-Pied-de-Port in the foothills of the French Pyrenees to the cathedral city of Santiago de Compostela and on to Finisterre is an experience of a life time.

The routes are especially significant for Christians, as they were used by Christian pilgrims during Muslim domination; but the churches, cathedrals, chapels and monasteries dotting the routes could interest any religious traveler.

el camino

In 813, a curious Christian hermit followed sweet music and twinkling stars to a remote hillside in Galicia. The bones he found were identified as those of Santiago, or St James as he’s known in English, and within a few years, Alfonso II, King of Asturias, visited the site, built a chapel and declared Santiago the patron saint of Spain. 

Well before Santiago’s time, the ancient Celts had their own version of the camino, following the via lactea (Milky Way) towards the sea at Finis Terrae (Finisterre), the end of the known world and as far west as they could travel without getting their feet wet. 

By the ninth century, Christian authorities had seized on the pilgrimage to Santiago as a way to drive out Muslim invaders. The number of pilgrims rose over the next couple of hundred years, and peaked in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when about half a million people made the pilgrimage and when many of the towns and cities along the camino were built. 

The camino dropped off the world tourism radar for a good few centuries, but by the 1980s, the camino’s popularity had soared once more: in 1982, Pope John Paul II became the first pontiff to visit Santiago de Compostela, then in 1987 the European Union declared the camino Europe’s first Cultural Itinerary. UNESCO followed suit in 1993, adding the camino to its World Heritage list.

walking & maps

In places like rural Galicia, walking is an integral part of life, whether heading to work in the fields or making for a post-farming glass of wine, and exercise for exercise’s sake can be seen as faintly ridiculous. Recreational hiking is gaining popularity in Spain, though, particularly amongst southern city dwellers who escape to cooler mountain regions like the Picos de Europa on sticky summer weekends. 

The camino heads across Spain on a variety of different surfaces, from narrow paths to paved roads. It’s mostly easy walking with very few rough or uneven surfaces, although some stone and mud tracks can become slippery after rain. Trail marking is generally excellent, and the abundance of yellow arrows makes it difficult to lose your way. 

For a good map at a scale of 1:100,000 try Pili Pala Press ‘s Camino de Santiago Map. It is in full colour,includes contours, places of interest and weighs a mere 88 grams. Camino de Santiago Map

guided walks

Based in A Coruña, On Foot in Spain’s small group tours (www.onfootinspain.com) are highly regarded. Iberian Adventures (www.iberianadventures.com) are also based in Spain, while Oxford-based Alternative Travel Group (www.atg-oxford.co.uk) runs two-week tours of the camino. 

Many US companies offer camino tours, including Experience Plus (www.experienceplus.com), Spanish Steps(www.spanishsteps.com), and Saranjan Tours(www.saranjan.com).

environment

Hunting is a big part of Spanish culture. It has eliminated some of Spain’s rarer creatures, and placed creatures such as the brown bear and the lammergeier, a bird of prey that nests in the Pyrenees, on the endangered species list.

Although it’s hard to believe when you’re getting soaked by a Galician rainstorm, water is one of Spain’s major environmental problems. River flow is decreasing as water is siphoned off for agricultural irrigation and to satisfy tourism demands, and Spain’s per capita water consumption is one of the highest in the world. The November 2002 Prestige oil spill decimated Galicia’s beautiful coastline and fishing industry.

The green movement in Spain is much younger than those of most northern European countries, but it has become much more organized and high-profile in the last few years, particularly since the Prestige spill. For more information about environmental issues in Spain, contact Amigos de la Tierra(www.tierra.org, or Adena, now affiliated with the World Wildlife Fund (www.wwf.es).

Part 2 of this series includes: when to go | food & drink | flora & fauna visas, money & costs

Part 3 of this series includes:  transport | accommodation equipment & fitness | communication | opening hours

Source: Pili Pala Press who publishes books on these popular pilgrimages in Spain, the Camino de Santiago and the Vía de la Plata, and provides historical background and photos of each.