Off to Paris--soon

Actually I'll be off to Chicago today, to visit family, before flying out of O'Hare for Charles de Gaulle on October 1.  Before my departure,  I have been able to make a reservation online for my first night in Sarria, my first stop on the pilgrimage route. I will be staying in a new hostel (opened in May!), the Albergue Mayor, which was recommended by another pilgrim in an online forum.  Reservation is not possible in the municipal albergues in Spain, and since I will be arriving at the hostel late in the evening, I wanted to make sure I had a place to stay.  Actually I have made tentative reservations in all of the places I plan to stay except one, where I was unable to do so.  I'll just call ahead the day before to confirm.

My bags are packed; I'm ready to go. . .

I've measured my backpack and it should fit within Vueling Airlines carry-on guideslines of 40cm x 20cm x 55 cm with a 10 kg weight limit.  My walking stick fits nicely into the backpack, but if they won't let me carry the stick on, I'll just check the whole thing.  I've heard conflicting stories on the subject, so it may just depend on the type of pole, or the subjective decision of the airline staff.  I'll just have to wait and see.

I've also decided I needed a scallop shell to take with me, and remembered some cooking shells (for Coquilles Saint Jacques!) I had bought years ago  to use as soap dishes.  Fortunately I had one left.  Drilling holes in it was a challenge, as it proved tougher than I thought--I was so afraid of cracking the shell!  If it remains intact in my luggage, I'll hang it from my backpack when I get there as the requisite talisman to identify me as a pilgrim.
 

My scallop shell  

On September 15, a friend and I walked a portion of Virgina side of Great Falls.  It was a beautiful sunny day, and there were hoards of people picnicking, walking, climbing the rocks, and enjoying the view of the falls from the various designated overlook areas.  Although we went with a group, which had billed the outing as a "hike", we managed to lose a good number of the original members along the way, but had a lovely time despite the fact that we probably did more rock-climbing than actual hiking.  It was another good opportunity to wear the hiking boots!

Pam and friend Rhonda Daniels

Great Falls National Park

 

Well in the travel section of the Washington Post recently there was an article on a single woman who had just walked the Camino Frances from the Spanish town of Hospital de Orbigo, slightly west of León.  She confirmed my earlier suspicion about the source of the revival of interest in the Camino, having heard about the Pilgrimage route from the Emilio Estevez and Martin Sheen film, The Way, in 2011.

Click on the link below for her story:

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/what-a-trip-leave-your-burdens-and-be-in-the-moment-on-spains-camino-de-santiago/2013/09/12/ea2f2824-1afe-11e3-82ef-a059e54c49d0_story.html

P.S.  All library books have been returned!

Last minute preparations

Well I might meet a familiar face along the Camino after all.  A friend of mine will be walking the pilgrimage route at roughly the same time I do, and our walks may overlap at Salceda and Santiago.  She will be doing a more deluxe Camino staying in "charming Galician manors," and her tour will include most meals, baggage transfer, and a guide, but will be walking longer distances as she will be walking 6 days to my more leisurely 9.  As she will be flying to Paris afterward, we should be able to at least catch up there.

I now hear Oprah is interested in the Camino.  According to the free Santiago de Compostela newspaper, Santiagosiete, her crew was recently on site in the city filming for a serial documentary to be called Believe, if I managed to translate the Spanish correctly, which is to be shown on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).  While the film The Way managed to expose a goodly number in the English-speaking world to the Pilgrimage, this series is certainly going to reach an even greater number of Americans that might have missed that film!  And I understand from the Pilgrim Office in Santiago that American pilgrims have grown a whopping 41% in the month of August over last year's statistics, from 4514 to 6787!   If that doesn't speak for the influence of the film (released in 2011 in the US), I don't know what does!  As I commented on the APOC* Facebook blog recently---"I'm glad I'm going now!"

I've managed to pick up a couple more titles from the Rockville library, including Off the Road, by Jack Hitt.  The author is extremely witty, and I found myself laughing out loud at many of his outlandish juxtapositions, but ultimately he comes off a bit smug and uninspiring.  From the offset it is obvious that he not a religious person, and he is extremely good at pointing out some of the absurdities of history, including many odd and unfortunate practices of the Catholic Church through the years.  To his credit, Hitt walks the entire Spanish Camino Frances, interacts with his fellow travelers, and meets a cast of colorful characters along the way.  But this is no Pilgrim's Progress, as Hitt manages to make it from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Santiago virtually unchanged.  Although he denigrates the Frenchwoman he meets at his offset, who dares to challenge him with "you are not a true pilgrim. Why do you come here?," she is correct in her assessment. 

The second title, The Road to Santiago, by Kathryn Harrison,  reflectively recounts the author's three separate experiences walking the Camino Frances in three non-chronological sections. The pregnant Kathryn accidently starts out on her first journey from the Spanish city of Burgos in 1992, while doing historical research for her writing, starts again in Astorga in 1999, makes it to Santiago de Compostela, and then attempts the walk a third time with her 12-year-old daughter in tow, from the French border town of St. Jean-Pied-de-Port, at the foot of the Pyrenees, to the town of Logroño in northern Spain.  At 150 pages, I easily finished it in an afternoon, a slender tome, intensely personal, but elegantly written.


Pilgrim Route (The Discoveries... Spain series) shown below is a somewhat dated DVD that I borrowed from the library.  As might be expected from the title, this is really about the Pilgrim Route from a touristic point of view.  A fair amount of footage is devoted to wine growing in La Rioja and fly fishing near León, methods both ancient and modern--not exactly useful for my trip. There was some material of interest about the Camino, though.  One Spanish travel commentator compared the Way of Saint James to the Internet of its time, as it linked cultures and allowed them to communicate with each other.  This was also alluded to in some of the earlier works I cited, which discussed the influence and movement of architectural styles and sculpture from one place to another, as the pilgrims, craftsman and tradesmen traveled the route.

I likewise learned from an Australian Camino pilgrim, interviewed in the film, that Shirley MacLaine's 2001 book, The Camino: A Journey of Spirit, was probably the first vehicle to interest the English-speaking world in the pilgrimage route in recent years.  I'm not particularly interested in walking a New-Age Camino, or reading about Ms. MacLaine channeling St. James, so think I'll skip this title.  On the other hand, I have put Paulo Coelho's The Pilgrimage on hold at the Rockville Library, but it has another reserve ahead of mine so I probably won't see it before I leave.  Apparently walking his 500+ mile Camino was a spiritual awakening and turning point for the Brazilian author, and the work is, thus, autobiographical,written scarcely a year before his international blockbuster, The Alchemist.

The video also mentioned that Saint Francis of Assisi walked the Camino, which was mentioned in at least one of the earlier sources I read. But there is no agreement among scholars that Francis even went to Spain.  Legend has it that Brother Francis and another monk, Brother Bernard, also originally from Assisi and belonging to same order Francis had founded, the Order of Friars Minor, took a mission to Spain in 1213-1214.  While there, the future Saint Francis allegedly walked the Camino de Santiago, barefoot. Many legends surround the life of this popular Saint, and according to one French website, his earliest biographers did not mention this pilgrimage, so it might actually be more fiction than fact.

http://www.saint-jacques.info/francois.htm

 *American Pilgrims on the Camino

Another book. . . or two . . .

An Amazon package arrived in the mail today with yet another book:  Pilgrimage to the End of the World: the road to Santiago de Compostela, by Conrad Rudolph.  It took me completely by surprise, as I didn't remember ordering it at first.  Apparently during a weak moment the fact that the author was a professor of medieval art and chair of the art history department at the University of California, Riverside must have interested me.  Unhappily the photos contained in the third section of the book are in black and white, as this is the paperback edition, but the first section, focusing on  pilgrimage during the Middle Ages, is quite engaging.  I'm already more than halfway through the book.

And I just downloaded one last?? title:  To the Field of Stars: A Pilgrim's Journey to Santiago de Compostela, by Kevin A. Codd.  This one is by a Catholic priest, so it should give me another perspective on the pilgrimage route.  I also tried to download the Kindle edition of the French language  Immortelle randonée : Compostelle malgré moi by Jean-Christophe Rufin, but found it was not available for download from the US.  This is the second time I have tried to download a French Kindle version from Amazon.fr but have been unable to do so.  I will have to try again from Paris in October before I leave for Santiago. The site will allow me to buy the hardback book, but it will take too long to get here from France, and will certainly weigh too much to carry with me.

Jean-Christophe Rufin is both a practicing physician and a writer, and since 2008, a member of the Académie française.  His 800-mile journey to Santiago de Compostela was via the  northern route, through the Basque country, rather than the frequently traveled "French" one, or "Camino frances".

Two other books I'm reading that have nothing to do with MY Camino are Hannah Green's Little Saint, about Sainte Foy ["Fides" or "Faith"] from Conques in south-central France.  The twelve-year-old early fourth century saint refused to deny her faith, was betrayed by her father, and beheaded; her relics later venerated. I actually read this book more than a decade ago, but decided to re-read portions of it as a refresher.

And then a lovely coffee table book which I ordered for Montgomery County Public Libraries a few years ago, Conques, by French art historian Jean-Claude Fau, with photographs of the village by Pascal Moulin. The St. Foy abbey-church in Conques was a popular stop for medieval pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela.  Jean-Claude Fau is credited by Hannah Green in her book as being a historian, author and expert on the region, whom she got to know while spending time in Conques researching her subject.

Now I've got so many books mentioned in this blog that I'm beginning to think I should have named it "A librarian's Camino de Santiago" or even "A librarian's guide to the Camino!"  I think I mentioned earlier that I have photo-copied the relevant pages (two-sided) of the so-called "bible", John Brierley's A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino de Santiago: St. Jean--Roncesvalles--Santiago, with its helpful maps and charts, to save weight, and will be leaving the book behind.

And I've downloaded some nice additional hiker/biker trail maps from MontgomeryParks.org for Rock Creek Trail, a 14.5 mile trail which starts in Rock Creek Regional Park (around Lake Needwood) and continues all the way through Washington, D.C.  As soon as the weather cools off a bit again I'll be able to venture out sporting my backpack and new hiking boots.  I've already tested out the areas around Lake Frank and Lake Needwood (sans boots and backpack) which serve my purpose quite well. The best part is the convenience, as they practically start in my own back yard!  

http://www.montgomeryparks.org/PPSD/ParkTrails/trails_MAPS/trailmap_pdfs/RCreek_trail.pdf 

Lake Frank

On the trail with Noisette and Jacques

Lake Needwood

Last month I even felt ambitious enough to join members of the local chapter of American Pilgrims on the Camino for their hike and picnic in the Patapsco State Park near Baltimore, and actually wore the hiking boots on that occasion. The APOC group plans walking/hiking events throughout the year, so I may join them again in the future after my Camino experience.

What's in a name

 "What's in a name? that which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet"

--William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (Act 2, Scene 2)

Well so far I've mentioned the names "James", "Jacques" and "Jacobus". Apparently the original derivation of the name we have come to know as "James", or "Jacob", is from the Hebrew given name "Yaakov", popularly interpreted to mean "he supplanted" referring to the Biblical story of Jacob and Esau. The Latin forms "Iacobus" (Jacob) or "Jacobus" and "Jacomus", resulted in the modern English forms of Jacob and James, or "Jacques" in French, "Giacomo", "Iacopo" or "Jacopo", or "Giacobbe" in Italian, which then, in turn, became "Iago" in western Spain. "Saint James" ("Sanctus Jacobus") became "Sant' Iago", which was abbreviated to simply "Santiago".

 In English we have variants and nicknames of "James" such as Jack, Jake, Jim, Jimmy, Jamie, or even Coby. Since the Germans are great hikers and many walk the Camino, the most common versions of "James" in German include "Jakob" or "Jacob" and "Jakobus." There is also a nickname "Kobus", but there are many, many more nicknames which have evolved. The Swiss German dialects are incredibly rich with these, including Bappi, Beppi, Peppi, Boobba, Boppi, Jäck, Jäckli, Jäcklin, Jagg, Jaggi, Jägsch, Jageli, Jaggili, Joggi, Joggel, Jockel, Jöggel, Joggeli, Jögeli, Jäppi, Jaggeler, Jagschi, Köbel, Kobi, Köbi, Zagge, and Hanogg being the most popular derivatives!  And those are just a few names for starters!  Pretty amazing!

Even my dog's name "Jacquot" is actually derived from a surname with its origins in the old French personal name "Jacques"

Well, my Camino passport has arrived!  A totally blank document except for my name and the statement that I intend to do the walk on foot.  I've put it in a small zip-lock bag to protect it for the time being...

Incidently, if anyone reading this blog ever considers walking the Camino themselves, the organization from which I requested my Credential, the American Pilgrims on the Camino, is a great source of information.  They also have a very active Facebook page where pilgrims or would-be pilgrims contribute regularly, along with a local chapter which plans occasional events. 

For a peek at their website, click on the link below

http://www.americanpilgrims.com/

I've also added another gadget to my backpack--an inexpensive headlamp.  I understand that I will likely need one for the last 20 km to Santiago de Compostela since I will be leaving very early in the morning when it is still dark.

Downie's Paris to the Pyrenees has largely turned out to be quite a disappointment after all.  He writes engagingly enough, for the most part, but the book has turned out to really about Downie's most  singular journey, accompanied by his circuitous travelogue, with descriptions of colorful characters met, and interspersed with historic trivia, personal opinion and wit.  Very little of the book, aside from his own internal musings on being a most unwilling, or even accidental pilgrim, has to do with walking the Way of Saint James.  In addition to the considerable information on Julius Caesar and Vercingétorix, there is interwoven a most curious commentary on former French president François Mitterrand! Most relevant were his comments about the powerful influence of the Abbey of Cluny during the 10th and 11th centuries, something I mentioned in an earlier post. Fortunately I did benefit from his photographer-wife Alison's gorgeous photos, which I was told were left out of the Kindle edition, but they managed to show up, after all, at the end of the android version of the Kindle "book."

Click on the link below to see some of her photos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29nlMaILO1U