14 April 2024
Planning a return to the Camino de Santiago

I am returning to Spain for a pilgrimage walk on the Camino de Santiago in two weeks. A year ago I was walking a 1050-kilometer (650 miles) pilgrimage route known as the Via de la Plata which started in Seville in the south of Spain. I developed severe and painful tendonitis in my left leg and had to stop walking after about 660 kilometers (410 miles) in a town called Granja de Moreruela. I returned home, and during a phone call with my sister Carol and her husband Ron, I expressed my disappointment over not having finished and my intention to return the next spring and complete the pilgrimage walk. Ron said he wanted to come with me. A few weeks later, his close friend, Dan, expressed his interest also. So Ron, Dan, and I will meet in Madrid on April 29. The next day, we will take the train to Zamora and spend two nights there getting oriented and completing any final preparations for the 420-kilometer (260-mile) pilgrimage walk from Zamora to Santiago de Compostela. We will start walking from Zamora on Thursday, 2 May 2024.

Here are two photos of me from last year’s walk. On the left is a photo of me at the top of a long hill looking over the valley from which we had been walking (12 April 2023). On the right is me in front of the elaborate entrance to the Cathedral in Salamanca (5 May 2023).

The following is some background and history of the Camino de Santiago and my involvement.

Some Camino de Santiago History

The Camino de Santiago is a collection of pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain where in the cathedral there, the remains of Saint James are said to be interred. Pilgrims have been making pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela for over a thousand years. The pilgrimage waxes and wanes in popularity due to economic and social changes. In medieval times, the Catholic Church encouraged the pilgrimage to stimulate the repopulation of Spain by Catholics after the Moors had been defeated. In the 1970s after two world wars and the end of the Franco regime, the pilgrimage emerged, gradually at first, and now there are thousands of people making the pilgrimage walk to Santiago de Compostela over various routes, some starting in various European countries.

The Name Saint James

Saint James the Greater, Saint James the Elder, or Saint Jacob was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus. He was the second apostle to die and the first to be martyred. Saint James is the patron saint of Spain. In French, Jacob becomes Jacques, and in English, James. In Latin, his name is Sanctus Iacobus. This translates to Diego in Spanish and Tiago in Galego, the language used in the northwest part of Spain where Santiago de Compostela is located.

Santiago de Compostela

The city name Santiago de Compostela is often shortened to “Santiago” in Spain and is also sometimes known outside Spain as “Compostela” to differentiate it from Santiago in Chile or the Philipines. Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia in northwestern Spain. In the cathedral is the shrine of Saint James the Greater, and the destination of the “Way of Saint James” or “Camino de Santiago” since the 9th century.

The legend is that the remains of Saint James were re-discovered in the 9th century by a hermit named Pelagius, who observed strange lights in a local forest. He sought help from the local bishop, Theodemar of Iria, and they were then guided to the spot by a star. “Compostela” was given the etymology as a modification of “campus stellas” or “field of stars.” Some other traditions, somewhat more skeptical, point out that the name of Compostela comes from the Latin “compositum,” “cemetery,” as the place was already an old Roman graveyard.

My Own Pilgrimage Involvement

I have an auspicious name for the Camino de Santiago.
My parents named me for Saint James, and my middle name, Christopher, is for Saint Christopher (the patron saint of travelers), a very Catholic name. I had heard about the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela many times and generally dismissed it. In 2015, my mother passed away at age 94 – she lived a good, long life. On my return flight to Southern California from the services in Washington State, the people next to me were talking about the Camino de Santiago, almost as if someone were tapping me on the shoulder saying, “It’s time…” So my motivation for my first pilgrimage walk was to honor my parents who named me for Saint James. 

Camino Frances

That first pilgrimage walk was on the route called the Camino Frances. Several routes emerged through France over hundreds of years, some converging at a small town, Saint Jean Pied de Port, in southwestern France where there is a pass over the Pyrenees mountains (“pied de port” translates to “foot of the pass”). The Camino Frances starts at Saint Jean Pied de Port and traverses 800 kilometers (500 miles) across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. I walked this route in the spring of 2016 by myself and again in the autumn of 2017 with my friends Tom and Julie from Sydney. Here is a diagram of the route of the Camino Frances:

Via de la Plata

The route known as the Via de la Plata starts in Seville in the south of Spain and follows or roughly parallels old Roman roads north to Astorga. When the Romans occupied the Iberian Peninsula, Astorga was their western military capital. They discovered precious metals (copper, silver, and some gold) in the mountains near Astorga and built a road south to the ports at Cadiz and Malaga to ship the ore or metals back to Italy. While the Via de la Plata translates directly to “way of the silver,” its name is more likely derived from the Latin word “platea” meaning wide road, or “Lapidata” meaning stone road referring to the broad, stone Roman road.

The Via de la Plata goes from Seville to Astorga, and once there, pilgrims can follow the Camino Frances to Santiago de Compostela making for a total walk of 1200 kilometers or over 740 miles. Alternatively, pilgrims can turn left at Granja de Moreruela just after Zamora to travel roughly northwest to Santiago de Compostela along a Camino route called the Camino Sanabres. Following the Via de la Plata from Seville then the Camino Sanabres to Santiago de Compostela is a 1000-kilometer walk (620 miles). Here is a diagram of the Via de la Plata / Camino Sanabres route:

Ron, Dan, and I will be walking from Zamora starting on 2 May 2024. The first two days of walking will be over the same sections as my final two days of walking last spring on the Via de la Plata. Then we will follow the Camino Sanabres to Santiago de Compostela. I chose Zamora as the starting point because there is direct high-speed train access from Madrid to Zamora. This will be a fairly long walk at about 420 kilometers (260 miles), although shorter than my previous three pilgrimage walks. I’ll try to update this blog daily. When possible, I will include a map of the day’s walk using the Samsung Health app on my Samsung watch and phone.

Next: Traveling to Spain