Via Podiensis at Two Years

Today is the second anniversary of my arrival in Santiago following my thousand-mile walking pilgrimage on the Via Podiensis and Camino Francés. From August 18 through October 23, 2023, I walked from Le Puy-en-Velay in France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain on pilgrimage to the tomb of the Apostle Saint James the Greater.

Last year on this date, I wrote a summary about how it had gone, along with some of the takeaways and musings that tumbled out of that experience. At the end, I wrote,

This pilgrimage has been transformative if that’s not already obvious, but I’ve yet to fully plumb the depths of my experiences. The “Photo of the Day” project has certainly helped, though if I’m being honest, at the current rate of progress, I won’t be through for another two years. Hopefully, by then, I will have returned to France and Spain, this time with Francine.

I will certainly be returning to France and Spain next year, God willing. But it will not be with Francine. And it’s breaking my heart. She would have loved rural France, and she certainly would have loved Paris. I’m sure it won’t last, but right now it all tastes of ashes and dust.

Francine in the mists of Galicia on our first Camino, 2013.