Camino de Santiago.

This is a route neither Peter nor I had heard of before meeting a lovely German guy who was in a motorhome in ‘our calle’ (street) in Alicante. His name was Peter and he was 70 years old. He had walked the whole route from St. Jean Pied de Port in France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. It is a pilgrims route and many people walk it each year.

It is believed that the remains of St James are buried in Santiago de Compostela so whenever St James’ day (the 25th July) falls on a Sunday the year is designated as being a holy year. And if you complete the walk during a holy year you are presented with a certificate which states that you have been granted absolution from all your sins so this year there are even more walkers than normal!

Peter was going to walk it again this year and as far as we know he has but completely by accident we found ourselves in a camp site on this same Pilgrims route.

The camp site is called Camino de Santiago, named after the Pilgrims route - it’s in a village called Castrojeriz and is quite an amazing place.

As well as being a camp site with a café, loos and showers it also provides a facility called an albergue, a large barn full of bunk beds for the walkers to use.

The café was a great place to sit and hear the stories of some of the walkers. We made friends with a few of them as they passed through the site during the three days we were there. There were all nationalities walking, all different denominations too. One lady we struck up quite a relationship with had come from South Africa to do the walk, another from Canada.

We walked just 6 Kms along the route ourselves and realised how committed these people are who walk the whole 780 Kms, averaging 30-35 Kms a day and carrying all their belongings with them.

It was a very humbling experience and one we will remember as being a highlight of our trip.