Hello world! Recently I walked famous Caminho de Santiago and would like to share that story with you!
What is Caminho de Santiago? It’s a network of various routes, which are starting from different points in France, Spain and Portugal and finishing in the Santiago de Compostella – city in the Galicia, northern part of Spain. From the 9th century, many people (“pilgrims” they called) have walked along those routes. They did so in order to pay a visit and respect to the remains of the famous disciple of Jesus, to the Saint James (known as Santiago in Latin culture). Nowadays, after some of the routes were listed in the UNESCO heritage, every year thousands of people from all around the world are starting their own pilgrimage (that might last for 1,2,3,4 or more weeks) in order either to fulfill their religious motives, to get over some problems back home, to walk the way with friends/loved ones or to enjoy the nature and Iberian culture. Or all of these things together!
From all the routes, I’ve chosen one of the shortest – from Porto to Santiago, which is just around 250 kilometers. There are two options from Porto: either to go on the coast of Portugal or in the interior part. I went by interior one. I spent six and a half days, covering all the distance, and my daily stops look like this: start from Porto to Barcelos, then Ponte de Lima, Tui (already Spain), Redondela, Padron and finally Santiago de Compostella! Though most of the pilgrim hostels (known as “albergue”) were closed due to Corona virus crisis, I still was able to find some of them working and spent nights there with the fellow-pilgrims :) I also used more ordinary hostels, couchsurfing and stopped for a night in the house of the other European Solidarity Corps volunteers here, in Portugal.
The reason why decided to walk Caminho is to discover and explore something new – places, faces and myself. Being European Solidarity Corps volunteer, I had tremendous plans for that summer (as everyone else did), that had canceled due to the outbreak of the infamous disease. And having heard a lot of positive comments on Caminho de Santiago, I decided that it would be a spectacular and safe substitute to my original traveling plans. And so it was!
Though my way wasn’t connected to the religious beliefs, but it’s quite impossible to ignore spiritual nature of such experience, therefore I find Caminho as a nice representation of life in general – you are walking a lot and sometimes it’s becoming boring and exhausting, so you just want to stop and get back home, but if you rest and push yourself a little bit forward, than you’ll find something that will encourage you to continue. And I’ve found a lot of those “things” on my way! Smiley policeman, who cheers you to keep on going and tells that he himself just got back from the Caminho; Incredible woman, when I just asked where I might find the next albergue and she gave me food, water and covered me with best wishes; Numerous amount of conversations with other pilgrims from Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal; Swimming under waterfall after walking 40 kilometers that day or just simple “Bom caminho” on the facade of the house along the route. And many more of those memorable moments!
The desire to explore was surely fulfilled as well. Barcelos and Ponte de Lima are very beautiful cities, where I’ve met super nice people and where I would love to return! And Galicia is a unique place, with it’s own dialect (Galego is like a twin brother to Portuguese), it’s Celtic culture and with specific cuisine! And I was lucky enough to finish my Caminho exactly on the day of Saintiago (25th of July), which is a regional day and a holiday in Galicia and had a chance to see all those things in a more exaggerated manner! I especially enjoyed songs and dances, which is quite surreal and very attracting mixture of Celtic bagpipes, dances and costumes with the Galego language and south rhythms.
I would definitely recommend for everyone to walk Caminho de Santiago, the idea itself is fascinating enough – you mostly just walk all day through ancient towns and splendid nature , spend every night in a new place, meet completely random, but 100% positive people. It’s fun to do by yourself or with a family/company and it’s also possible to do Caminho on a bicycle or even a horse.
Don’t hesitate and ask me all arised questions – it would be my pleasure to help!
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PS. Huge thanks to the European Union for providing an opportunity for me and other young people to come to Portugal as a volunteer for European Solidarity Corps program and experiencing such adventures, as I just described (and many more!) . I especially value the fact, that even during such tragic circumstances, as we witnessed that spring, most projects were re-adapted, but kept on going with the support from EU. Keep on doing great job #ESC #EUSolidarityCorps !