Owner: The Big Walk URL:http://www.the-big-walk.co.uk Join Date: Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:17:10 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: The Big Walk is the story of a 4,000 hike across Europe. It passes through Spain, France, Italy and Greece.
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To Leon - Day 19 2008-03-08 11:01:49 The road walk continue once again, and at one point we have to walk on the hard shoulder only inches from speeding trucks, and cut across motorway slip roads. Further on, we realise we’d missed a new part of the camino that headed through a series of tunnels. Luckily we haven’t far to go, and on [...]
Roadside tramping - Day 18 2008-03-06 14:05:06 It’s sad to leave Astorga, and a few miles north we look from a plateau back to see the town bathed in the dawn light. Pleasant walking through wheat fields bring us to Hospital de Orbigo, which has a fabulous long pilgrim bridge with no fewer than twenty arches. It was built in the eleventh [...] Read more:Roadside
Astorga - Day 17 2008-03-02 02:33:48 We really need a day off, especially after last night. We do manage to visit the grand (for the size of Astorga) Cathedral, whose interior is strangely almost split in two by a giant organ. Apart from that, we spend a couple of hours over a huge lunch, before a long siesta. It’s amazing how [...]
The Maragateria - Day 16 2008-02-29 15:55:23 We’re now in the Maragateria, a plateau named after its mysterious inhabitants, the Maragatos. It’s thought they are descendents of the Berbers, and they only married amongst themselves until recent times. We see few people around though - the landscape is rough grassland interspersed with bushes, something like the African savannah. Lower down, the farmland [...]
The Montes de Leon - Day 15 2008-02-27 02:41:01 This morning we started so early we walked for thirty minutes in the dark, wearing our head torches to help cars to see us. The camino forms the main street of Molinesca, where it is lined by old limestone houses with galleries and a graceful arched pilgrim bridge. Only a few days ago we were [...]
Onto the plains - Day 21 2008-03-12 15:17:14 An exit from the city along another giant main road brings us back to our own version of reality. We follow the road for four and a half hours but time seems to go quickly in the cool morning, and the beautiful light when looking back over the city provides compensation. We leave the road [...]
Cathedral and Tripe - Day 20 2008-03-10 13:05:17 The shop below our room happens to be a bakery, so we start the day with huge napoletanas, the Spanish version of pain au chocolat. It makes a change from our usual breakfast fare of tortilla. First up has to be the great Cathedral
. There’s a huge open plaza extending round the side as well as [...]
Sahagun and the Moors - Day 22 2008-03-14 15:47:04 The stars outside the tent last night were amazing. There were no lights within sight, no hills to block the view, just an enormous half sphere of sky with more and brighter stars than I’ve ever known. The walking is less inspiring, continuing endlessly on a ruler-straight purpose built cycle track, across a frying pan [...]
The Frying Pan - Day 23 2008-03-17 05:15:53 I’ve always wanted to watch the sun rise on midsummer’s day from somewhere special but a couple of miles outside Sahagún will have to do. We’ve watched so many sunrises lately. Luckily the countryside is a little less flat than yesterday and the winding route means you can’t see it for miles in advance. There’s [...] Read more:Frying
Festival of Flowers - Day 24 2008-03-19 13:54:54 CHAPTER 2 - FIESTA!
The fiesta was really started. It kept up day and night for seven days. The dancing kept up, the drinking kept up, the noise went on. The things that happened could only have happened during a fiesta. Everything became quite unreal finally and it seemed as though nothing could have any consequences.
Ernest [...] Read more:Festival
, Flowers
A room of our own, Day 25 2008-03-22 10:53:02 Some of the other pilgrims in the hostel set a new record by getting up at four o’clock, whilst we depart at the lazy hour of a quarter to six. The cycle track leading to Fromista is flanked by several villages with fortress-like churches. There’s a good reason for us to keep moving as the [...]
Breaking Bread together - Day 26 2008-03-24 09:10:10 A miracle has occurred - there are clouds in the sky! The next village of Itero de la Vega has tudor style black and white houses, which makes it seem ancient, since to British eyes these are about the oldest homes we have. Happily, the plains are behind us at last, and we begin to [...] Read more:Breaking
, Bread
, together
A load of tripe - Day 27 2008-03-29 12:14:17 Our final two sections of meseta, separated by a wide chalk valley, are bathed in a rosy, soft dawn light that makes you feel even more apart from the world below. It’s a tiring but very pleasant walk, and we approach to the city of Burgos through a long, shady riverside park, a welcome change [...]
Burgos, City of El Cid - Day 28 2008-04-01 10:43:26 It’s a whole week since we last had a day off, and our aching bodies aren’t allowing us to forget. We head over to the Cathedral, packed in amongst a maze of streets, a Gothic giant which dwarfs that in Leon. It’s covered in delicate filigree stonework, with projecting baubles everywhere, looking like someone has [...] Read more:Burgos
The Cyclops - Day 29 2008-04-01 10:46:29 As we leave the city centre at six o’clock the next morning, great crowds of people are still wandering the streets, or queuing to get into nightclubs. The waking hours we are keeping are truly alien here.
We’ve been dreading the walk out of Burgos following warnings from other pilgrims; it’s reputedly the worst and most [...] Read more:Cyclops
The Big Paella - Day 30 2008-04-06 04:22:19 We’re passing frequently through villages again, which is good news as it means I don’t have to carry four kilos of water, with every Spanish village having a public fountain. Many houses here are stone to the top of the ground floor windows, with timber framing and plaster above. At home such houses would be [...] Read more:Paella
Fiesta de San Pedro - Day 31 2008-04-09 14:26:17 It’s only a few miles into Santa Domingo de la Calzada, founded by its namesake, another saint who dedicated his life to helping pilgrims on their way (after he was refused entry to San Milan monastery due to his illiteracy). The cathedral is, however, more famous for its chickens, chirping away incongruously in a gilded [...] Read more:Fiesta
, Pedro
New boots - Day 32 2008-04-11 06:27:30 Helen is still dehydrated from yesterday’s heat and is suffering with headaches today; once you’re dehydrated it takes at least a day of constant drinking to get your system back to normal. Luckily it’s cloudy so at least she shouldn’t get any worse.
The lovely Rioja countryside seems almost as green as Galicia, and by lunchtime [...]
Lazy in Logrono - Day 33 2008-04-14 05:55:38 This is a wealthy, modern city filled with trendy cafes and shops, a business centre rather than a tourist one. This provides us with the perfect excuse to do very little but relax, rest in the park and munch empaňadas – slices of delicious pies with all types of fillings. In the supermarket, they sell [...]
Into Navarra - Day 34 2008-04-24 02:23:29 After crossing a great bridge, a long, slow climb takes us into Navarra, the heart of the Basque country. The effort is rewarded by Viana, a hilltop town will panoramic views behind. It’s an enchanting place of old mansions and cobbled streets – the masons here use many different coloured stones to make elaborate patterns [...]
The Way Ahead - Day 35 2008-04-29 02:55:37 There was a sign in the hostel reading ‘Silence until 7am’; a late start but we’re not planning to go far today so we thought it would be ok. So we were surprised when the hostel owner switched on all the dormitory lights at six and played soothing medieval music on his stereo – at [...]
Fountain of Life - Day 36 2008-05-03 11:13:17 We decide to have a really short day today, to ensure we don’t arrive at Pamplona before the start of the fiesta. Happily, our Dutch hosts serve a big, leisurely buffet breakfast. Afterwards they hand out tiny sewing kits to each pilgrim – is there no end to their kindness? Our penance is having to [...] Read more:Fountain
Bridge of the Queen - Day 37 2008-05-07 02:04:20 Outside Estella we crossed the Salt River. In the Santiago pilgrim museum we saw an original copy of the Codex Clatinus, the original book written to help pilgrims and reputedly the world’s first guidebook. The author of the Codex warned pilgrims not to allow their horses to drink from this river; his own horse had [...] Read more:Queen
To the Fiesta - Day 38 2008-05-11 03:59:09 We were kept awake much of last night by guitar-playing pilgrims, but were cheered outside town when we saw a signpost declaring ‘Santiago – 825km’. It sounds a impressively long way, but I’m glad there’s no pointer for Istanbul. After several more whitewashed villages, we climb up to the Alto de Perdon, a long ridge [...] Read more:Fiesta
Long Live San Fermin! - Day 39 2008-05-16 03:52:17 We lie in as long as we can, until Maribel wakes everyone to come and watch the first encierro on her television. There’s an absolute throng of people all along the half mile of narrow city streets; it seems impossible that the bulls will even be able to get through. When the bulls are released [...]
The Running of the Bulls - Day 40 2008-05-24 02:47:18 Beyond the walls a massive funfair has been set up. We wonder round the stomach-churning rides before opting for the big wheel – which still proves terrifying for Helen. We run round after a peña band for a while before heading to another park. There’s a giant stage and music but we’re hungry enough to [...]
Adios, Peregrinos - Day 41 2008-05-27 08:16:38 The arid plains of Spain seem to be behind us at last as we near the Pyrenees – today’s hike passes through beautiful beechwoods. The villages have changed too – Burguete is a cluster of whitewashed Alpine chalet-style houses with steeply pitched roofs to shed the snow. Only a few miles on is the great [...] Read more:Adios
Hold the Heights - Day 42 2008-06-12 02:48:56 CHAPTER THREE
What if I live no more those kingly days?
Their night sleeps with me still.
I dream my feet upon the starry ways;
My heart rests in the hill.
I may not grudge the little left undone;
I hold the heights, I keep the dreams I won.
Geoffrey Winthrop Young
The pilgrim route is over. It feels amazing that the first [...] Read more:Heights
Running dry - Day 43 2008-06-16 10:08:07 Not a good night’s sleep: we hadn’t checked the ground under the tent very well and some rocks seemed to embed themselves in my back during the night. I’m only using a half-length foam pad to sleep on, to save weight, and am already jealous of Helen’s comfy inflatable thermarest pad.
Tracks through the forest begin [...]
A high and lonely place - Day 47 2008-07-22 04:29:32 We set off up the valley to the east, far below the great rock towers on our right, which remind me of the Towers of Paine in Patagonia. Woods and pastures give way to stunted trees and gorse, before we emerge again on grassy hillsides for the final stage of the climb to the pass, [...]
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