Walking the Camino de Santiago
Getting ready physically for the Camino.
Training for my upcoming walk on the Via Lemovicensis has more or less concluded. I’ve repacked my bags for the flight, and the two days until I fly will be taken up with various housekeeping measures and preparation for and celebration of Good Friday and the great Vigil of Easter. Part of that training is walking a “virtual Camino”. Francine […]
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A gorgeous day for a walk. It snowed yesterday. This morning, the streets and sidewalks were still covered with it, starting to melt now in the slightly warmer temperatures. My training schedule said today was meant to be a 20 km day. The sidewalks were slushy and wet, and the walk was slow going. My trekking poles were definitely helpful. […]
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We are 25 days out, so it’s about time for an update. It’s also apparently time for my backpack to explode all over my dining room. I’ll cover both training updates and planning updates here, as best as I can remember everything that’s gone on in the past few weeks. Training I continue to stick to my plan, which includes […]
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In the decade and a half that I’ve trained for Camino, I’ve never done it without Francine before. There are days when that hits me, and I’m overcome with melancholy as I hike. At the same time, sometimes I can feel her with me, off to my left, hiking in her usual place. It is the strangest thing. Today, after […]
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This morning I went for a walk, and I somehow ended up walking a Camino day as a pilgrim in my own town. I don’t know when exactly I made the decision, but I found that sometimes it’s worthwhile to be a pilgrim in your own hometown. My original plan, such as it was, was to go up and down […]
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Next year, I plan to walk a long Camino for Francine. Some background is probably in order. At the annual Gathering of Pilgrims back in 2022, Francine attended a talk on one of the four main Camino routes in France: the Voie de Vézelay, also known as the Via Lemovicensis. She was immediately smitten with this route. For one thing, […]
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Today is the Feast of Saint James the Greater, known throughout the Spanish-speaking world as Santiago and in French as Saint Jacques. He was one of Christ’s Twelve Apostles. Saint James is the patron saint of the archdiocese of Seattle. May you have the joy of the feast! James and his brother John were natives of Galilee, sons of the […]
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My new book, Practical Pilgrimage, is now available for purchase. Subtitled “Useful Rules for Walking the Camino de Santiago”, it’s a deeper exploration and expansion of a blog post that appeared back in 2023, Thom’s Practical Rules for the Camino. Purchase on Amazon (affiliate link)Purchase from Powell’s Books (preferred)Purchase at Barnes & Noble This short book (about a hundred pages) […]
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Today we walked our last 8km together before Thom heads to France. For the next two weeks my mind will now focus on the me portion of this adventure. Focus will be on Increasing my speaking of Spanish and rudimentary Portuguese. I am pretty confident with listening of both at my levels but cannot get over the speaking shyness. Me? Shy? […]
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Kit for the Via Podiensis We’ve come to that part of the pre-Camino countdown where for every two or three items I’m checking off my list, I seem to be adding one more. Today my very last piece of kit arrived – a new windbreaker/rain shell to replace my old one. The new one is about a third the weight […]
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