Camino time again!
Sitting here on a cold, windy and drizzly March Day I’m wishing I was somewhere else. Somewhere warmer and with a frisson of excitement in the air. Despite getting out about a fair bit over the past few months, I’ve had a yearning to be back where life is far less complicated. That place is, of course, on another Camino. So, in just over 11 weeks’ time it’s back to Spain to get my booster!
This time, however, it is no epic 30 day walk. For it is a
mere 6 day stroll from the Galician port city of Ferrol down to Santiago de
Compostela. This particular Camino is known as the Camino Inglés; which of
course means the English Camino. It is so-named as it’s the route that many pilgrims
from the British Isles trekked into Santiago in bygone days having arrived on
ships into the Galician port cities of Ferrol and A Coruña.
The Camino Inglés therefore has two different starting points;
one in each of those cities. The Ferrol route is the longer of the two, at 75
miles. Coruña to Santiago being a fair bit less at 47 miles. The two routes converge
in the middle of nowhere, at a hamlet called Hospital de Bruma 27 miles north
of Santiago.
Much as we’d love to arrive into Spain by boat, it simply
isn’t practicable. So, we fly via Madrid into Coruña, where we’ll stay for a
night. Sadly, it’s not in the football season, so I won’t be able to visit
Deportivo A Coruña’s magnificently named stadium – El Riazor. Oh well I’ll have
to go there again another time with my Spanish Correspondent Señor Phil Johnson
– well that’s if he can lift himself off his Estepona sunbed!!
From Coruña, we take a bus up to Ferrol, where the walking
starts in earnest. The route from there hugs the inlets (Ria’s) of the coast initially
before heading directly south to Santiago
Quite simply that was the plan, until somewhat unexpectedly we came across a Camino signpost whilst walking near St. Ives back in December.
That, of course, aroused my curiosity! Now I always knew there were various pilgrim routes across the UK, but in my head they were not directly linked with the Camino de Santiago; or more importantly, signposted as such. After a bit of research it transpires that there are many routes to various ports, although they are no well publicised, or signposted as part of the Santiago route. Oh well something to look at in the future maybe?
As with our previous 2 Camino’s in Spain, you can obtain
stamps in a Credencial Passport as you go, and then collect a “Compostela”
(completion certificate) upon arrival in Santiago provided you have walked over
100 kilometres, and your “passport” has been stamped twice per day en route. To
be blunt, I’m not bothered about the “Compostela”, but the Passport serves as
an excellent souvenir of the adventure.
Whilst ordering two passports for the forthcoming trip from
the snappily named “Confraternity of St. James” in London, I stumbled into
their publications page and found a guide book called “A pilgrims guide to St.
James’ Way – A Camino in England from Reading to Southampton”. With Reading being
not too far away I thought it was worth the £6 to buy it. Well, what a
revelation.
It turns out that a lot of this route has been re-signposted; and not only that, but you can collect stamps in your Credencial along the way at various churches. Game on! The perfect way to extend the overall Camino, and to get some fitness training in as well. So that is what we’ll be doing – walking from Reading to Southampton in April, and then going over to Spain in late May for the second leg.
St. James' Church, Reading
Unfortunately, the infrastructure to support pilgrims/walkers
in the UK is nowhere near that in Spain. There are few places to stay along the
way, and most of them are both pricey and off the actual route itself.
Nevertheless, we’ve devised a way of doing it using 2 cars and AirBnB’s.
There’ll be a single day of walking from Reading to Mortimer to start things off. Then we’ll do 4 days walking back-to-back. The route itself looks reasonably pretty for the most part – obviously not in Reading though! In the latter parts we’ll go through Alresford where we’ll pick up the River Itchen, and then follow it through Winchester and onwards into Southampton. Ending at God’s House Tower right next to the docks. If nothing else, a few days walking in April will test our wet weather gear!
God's House Tower, Southampton
That’s it for now. There’ll updates from the English legs of
the walk as we go.
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