Nodge's Travels

Firstly a massive thank you to Mr & Mrs B for rising early and transporting us to Heathrow. As is virtually always the case these days, a flight booked via BA to Spain ends up being operated by Iberia, so it’s off to the horrible dated dump that is Terminal 3 rather than the glistening T5. Either way we’re fleeced £5 for 30 seconds of sensationally exciting drop off. I’m really sorry for the language, but this remains the ultimate f’ing rip off of post-Thatcherite Britain.  Anyway, what we lack in lustre in the terminal we make up for on the plane. None of the bog standard A319/320/321 variants. Today we have a lovely wide-body 330-200 with enough in-seat gizmos to keep me entertained for the relatively short hop to Madrid. What a beauty I’ve decided that layovers are a pain. You never quite know what hoops you’ll have to jump through. Invariably in a quite a rush too. Madrid’s Barajas airport didn’t disappoint. Going through “passports” was no great shock. The “todas pasaporte...

History of the Camino Inglés The Camino Inglés earned its name due to the large number of pilgrims from north-western Europe, notably England, who travelled by sea to the Spanish ports of A Coruña and Ferrol before continuing their pilgrimage on foot to Santiago. Records dating back to the 11th Century tell of pilgrims using these nautical routes and setting sail from the English ports on trade ships bound for the Western coast of Spain. However, the journey by sea was a treacherous one, so many chose to lengthen the land passage by taking the shorter channel crossing to France before continuing their journey by foot along one of the many routes through that country. In the 14th and 15th century the 100 year war between England and France made the journey overland more dangerous and led pilgrims to once again use the longer nautical route direct to Galicia. The Camino Inglés became so popular during that period that the English Crown began to issue special licences to vessels carry...

It’s a week since we finished our Reading to Southampton “Camino” so there’s been time to reflect on it all. In short it was absolutely great. We were fortunate with the weather undoubtedly, but the conditions underfoot were nevertheless tough at times. Was it better than just a standard walk in the UK? I wouldn’t want to say definitively either way; however, there were two factors that made it feel more special than just a normal walk. Firstly, the walking from “A to B over several days” nature of it made it feel different. Of course, you can do that on any long-distance path such as the Ridgeway/Thames Path/Cotswold way etc. The second factor was the “Camino touches” (oooh that sounds a bit risqué misses – titter ye not!). By that I mean the Camino style way markers and the stamps in the Credencial Passport. In a peculiar way, the logistical planning was equally as hard as the walk itself. To make the walking distances doable each day we were limited to the places where we could st...