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A Pilgrim's Journey; 3000 Kilometers from Rome to Santiago
A Pilgrim's Journey; 3000 Kilometers from Rome to Santiago
A Pilgrim's Journey; 3000 Kilometers from Rome to Santiago
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A Pilgrim's Journey; 3000 Kilometers from Rome to Santiago

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Curious about the differences between a life lived at a 5 km/h. walking pace and contemporary life lived at 100, or 1000 km/h., the author undertook 2/3 of the medieval pilgrim’s hat trick, walking from Rome to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. His three-year camino took him through the Alps to Briancon, France, from there to the foothills of the Pyrenees, and finally across the Pyrenees, through Santiago and on to Finisterra on Spain’s Atlantic coast.
He shares his observations of the culture, cuisine, customs, and countryside of Italy, France, and Spain, reflects on distance walking, his own character, and the experience of pilgrimage in a post-religious world, and wrestles with questions of forgiveness and peace.
Ultimately he agrees with Paul Coelho who, “... walked so many miles to discover things (he) already knew, things that all of us know but that are so hard to accept,” and with Wab Kinew that, “We have a choice in life – we can choose how we are going to behave. We can determine whether we reflect the good around us or lose ourselves in the darkness.”

LanguageEnglish
PublisherTrip Kennedy
Release dateOct 3, 2018
ISBN9780463606162
A Pilgrim's Journey; 3000 Kilometers from Rome to Santiago
Author

Trip Kennedy

Raised in the US Northeast, Trip received degrees from Grinnell College, Iowa, and Queen’s University, Kingston. He has worked as a secondary school teacher, municipal councillor, adult educator, town manager, management consultant, negotiator, and public service manager. Currently, Trip is pursuing a life-long interest in travel and travel writing while he continues to practice choral music and advise public agencies on project management and community development. Trip lives with Susan, his wife of 45 years in Victoria, British Columbia.

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    Highly recommended reading for Camino dreamers. A cultural pilgrim with many historic descriptions en route.

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A Pilgrim's Journey; 3000 Kilometers from Rome to Santiago - Trip Kennedy

Cover photo: Santiago Peregrino, Villacázar de Sirga, Spain

A Pilgrim’s Journey; 3000 Kilometers from Rome to Santiago

Trip Kennedy

ISBN: 978-0-9918134-1-4

Published at Smashwords

© Trip Kennedy 2018, all rights reserved

tripkennedy.com

For Susan

We have a choice in life – we can choose how we are going to behave. We can determine whether we reflect the good around us or lose ourselves in the darkness.

- Wab Kinew

Table of Contents

Introduction

Italy Week 1: 202 km: Rome to Radicofani

Italy Week 2: 195 km: Radifocani to Lucca

Italy Week 3: 190 km: Lucca to Fidenza

Italy Week 4: 205 km: Fidenza to Castell’Apertole

Italy Week 5: 159 km: Castell’Apertole to Briançon, France

France Week 1: 189 km: Briançon to Ganagobie

France Week 2: 246 km: Ganagobie to Montpelier

France Week 3: 232 km: Montpelier to Carcassone

France Week 4+: 249 km: Carcassone to Maubourget

Spain Week 1: 198 km: Maubourget to Berdún, Spain

Spain Week 2: 214 km: Berdún to Cirueña

Spain Week 3: 147 km: Cirueña to Frómista

Spain Week 4: 167 km: Frómista to Astorga

Spain Week 5: 194 km: Astorga to Palas de Rei

Spain Week 6: 161 km: Palas de Rei to Santiago via Fisterra

Postscript

Notes

Further Reading

Introduction

Motivation

When I told friends that I was planning to walk from Rome to Santiago de Compostela, they all asked the same thing. Why? It was a reasonable question; I wished I had a good answer.

I knew the Emilio Estevez film, The Way, held part of the answer. When Daniel Avery tells his father, Tom, that he was withdrawing from his Ph.D. program to see the world, it’s about the last straw in their strained relationship. You don’t choose a life, Dad, you live one, Daniel explains as he sets off for the Camino de Santiago. Shortly thereafter, Tom receives a telephone call. Daniel has died in a storm in the Pyrenees. Tom travels to France to bring Daniel’s remains home. But for reasons he cannot articulate, he decides to cremate the body and walk the Camino with his son’s ashes.

The emotional hook in the implied reconciliation between father and son is obvious, and yet when the movie ended, I thought, Gee, that looks interesting, I think I’d like to do that. As a student of Medieval history, I was intrigued by the living artifact that is the Camino. During the Middle Ages, Santiago de Compostela had been one of Europe’s preeminent pilgrimage destinations. Combined with Jerusalem and Rome, they constituted a sort of pilgrims’ hat trick. Given the political situation in Syria and Lebanon, a walk to Jerusalem did not seem like a good idea. But I could walk to Rome and Santiago, or maybe from one to the other. Since all roads lead to Rome, it made sense to my contrarian mind to walk away from Rome instead.

As a result of a bad hiking experience when I was about 10, I’d lived most of my life convinced that I was not a hiker, so I spent 12 weeks testing my ability. I was surprised and pleased to find that I could comfortably walk successive 35 km days carrying more than 15 kg. Once that was clear, I started planning. But capacity and intention are not one and the same; just because I could do the walk, I still did not understand why I would want to.

My wife, Susan, had started to tell people that I was planning a pilgrimage. I cringed every time she said it. Pilgrimage sounded religious.

We know that pilgrimage is central to Islam, but if we thought that Christianity had invented it, we’d be wrong. Psalms 122-128 celebrate Jewish pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Buddhists also make pilgrimages. Hinduism is older than either Judaism or Buddhism. Hindus have been making pilgrimages to their sacred sites for perhaps as long as 4000 years. Greek and Roman pagans also made pilgrimages.

And there are secular pilgrimages. People certainly make historical pilgrimages to battlefields. Many visits to other kinds of sites, such as national parks, are also arguably pilgrimages. More prosaically, people even make pilgrimage-like visits to halls of fame. Maybe pilgrimage is a broad enough concept to include at least some kinds of tourism.

I had heard that when people apply for their pilgrim’s passport, which entitles them to use inexpensive, pilgrim-oriented hostels along the way to Santiago, they are asked whether the objective of their pilgrimage is religious, spiritual, cultural, or tourism. There was no form in the Middle Ages, but all four motives seem to have been in play for earlier pilgrims, too[1]. However, religious motivations were probably the most important. The Pope granted indulgences, which shortened one’s time in purgatory, to soldiers who joined the First Crusade in 1096. After that, indulgences became available to civilian pilgrims to the Holy Land and somewhat later to pilgrims to other important religious centres, such as Rome. An indulgence might even be plenary, a pass directly to heaven, a sort of get-out-of-jail-free card.

Beyond salvation, other religious motivations encouraged many Christians to visit places where significant religious events were believed to have taken place: the site Christ’s birth, betrayal, and crucifixion; the sites of early martyrdoms; the birth places of important saints. The attraction of such sites no doubt combined piety and a simple desire to pay homage. Evidence of God’s presence in the material world, such as the Shroud of Turin, exerted a strong pull.

Pilgrims also visited saints’ relics to invoke help with life’s challenges. Miracles, including cures, were reported by those visiting saints’ shrines. Even if miracles were relatively rare, one could give thanks, as Chaucer had it, to The hooly blisful martir for to seke, / That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke(see Further Reading: Chaucer, Geofry). But none of this appealed to me. One has only to consider the jealous, vindictive God of the Old Testament, or the God of Jihad, enjoining followers to put heretics and apostates to the sword. My pilgrimage was not religiously motivated.

Perhaps a spiritual purpose then. The Middle Ages did not distinguish between the religious and the spiritual. But we now think that there is a distinction, and that it is significant. A pilgrimage that seeks after the truth of things could be seen as spiritual. I realized that I was, in a way, seeking after truth.

Historians believe that the study of history helps illuminate the present and the future. The underlying assumption is that human nature has remained much the same since the dawn of time. People down through the ages have responded to the same wants and needs as those that motivate us today, and in the same way. So runs the assumption.

But it seems to me at least plausible that peoples’ lives 1000 years ago were enough different from ours to throw the assumption into doubt. Certainly our state of technological development is much different. In fact, our entire social and political context is radically different. Might these differences affect what we take to be human nature? Might human nature not have changed, have evolved over the last 1000 years? I was interested in what difference it might make if I were to live my life at 5 km/h (roughly at a pilgrim’s walking pace) rather than the 100 km/h of the automobile, or the 1000 km/h of the commercial jet, or the 1.1x108 km/h of contemporary communication.

But characterizing my historian’s curiosity as a spiritual quest would be a stretch. In addition, I’m a child of the Enlightenment. All that is knowable is here in the material world. There is no deeper truth; nothing spiritual to know. I wouldn’t be identifying a spiritual motive either.

Chaucer, in recognizing tourism as a motive for pilgrimage, speaks disparagingly of …palmeres (pilgrims to the Holy Land) for to seken straunge strondes, / To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes. Tourism also strikes me as a somehow shallow, not to say an ego-centric, motive. That said, I’d found Italy charming on previous visits. I was keen to experience the Italy that lies beyond its major cities. But is seeking new and exotic experience an adequate reason to abandon one’s home and go off beating about the Italian countryside for six weeks? I think not; I don’t like the idea that tourism could account for my motive either.

Well, if it’s not religious, spiritual, or tourism, that leaves only cultural. I’m not clear what cultural means in this context. My grandfather was Catholic. Southern Europe’s Catholicism is part of my cultural heritage. But that’s not what I wanted to explore, I wanted to live the history, to the extent that that is possible 1000 years after the fact, not the religion. But culture does sound better than tourism.

Or maybe there was something primal in my desire to go walkabout, as the Australian Aborigines have it. Chaucer also acknowledges primeval motives for pilgrimage, Wan that Aprille with his shoures sote / The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote, / And bathed every veyne in swich licour, / Of which vertu engendred is the flour.... / Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages. The sap rises, and longon folk to goon on pilgrimages.

Victor and Edith Turner and John Ure all suggest that pilgrimage is common to many, if not all, cultures:

Both for individuals and for groups, some form of deliberate travel to a far place intimately associated with the deepest, most cherished, axiomatic values of the traveler seems to be a ‘cultural universal’. If it is not religiously sanctioned, counseled, or encouraged, it will take other forms…. The pilgrimage impulse may take an overtly political form, as in the visit made by millions of Russians annually to Lenin’s tomb in the Kremlin. [2]

To go to see for oneself the scene of great events is a deeply ingrained human instinct. [3]

So maybe pilgrimage, no matter how one classifies its purpose, is not such an awkward concept after all.

There may be something else. Of my father’s many injunctions, finish what you start stuck; it is not easy for me to leave things undone. After I’d figured out that I could walk from Rome to Compostela, testing an idea metamorphosed into planning a trip. I’m not sure how or when that happened. But at some point it became almost impossible for me to imagine not undertaking the walk I had planned. I had not resolved to do the full 3000 kilometres. I could break the walk into three national, 1000 kilometer segments: Italy; France; and Spain; and think of the leg from Rome to the French Alps as a test run.

Margery Kempe suggests three other possible motives for my pilgrimage (see Further Reading: Collis ). Although illiterate, she dictated what is often cited as the first English-language autobiography. During her life, ca. 1373 to 1438, she made pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela and such important but lesser sites as Canterbury and Wylsnack, Germany. It would seem that she undertook her serial pilgrimages as acts of penance, ...she committed a secret sin which filled her with horror and remorse ... no amount of penance, good deeds, or almsgiving relieved her. In order to be absolved, it was necessary to confess to a priest and this she was afraid to do. [4] Her book recounts both her pilgrimages and other acts of piety. It seems she hoped it would establish her credentials for the sainthood she never achieved.

I have little in common with her. However, in her I recognize another possible motivation for my pilgrimage. I suspect that Margery hoped that in visiting the Middle Age’s premier pilgrimage sites she would stand out from the crowd, not only with the religious authorities but with her friends and neighbours as well. No one I know has ever done anything remotely like walking from Rome to Compostela. I would be unique among my associates if I completed the trek. So a desire for exceptionality may also be at least a part of my motivation.

Finally, and again like Margery, I hoped that there would be a book somewhere in my walk. I didn’t know where it would be, but I was hopeful that it would be there. If I paid attention, I just might find it. So, if a book is a cultural artifact then maybe I could, in good conscience, assert that my pilgrimage was culturally motivated when the time came.

Planning and Preparation

The first leg of my walk through Italy would follow the Via Francigena, the route Archbishop Sigeric recorded on his way back to Canterbury after receiving his cloak of office from the Pope in 990 CE. Once I’d confirmed my physical capacity and started planning my walk, I had two major concerns. First, everyone I read who had walked the Via Francigena (VF) seemed to get lost several times a day. I did not want to get lost. I feared that my fluency in Italian did not extend to obtaining and acting on verbal walking directions. Second, I worried about blisters. Walking on sore feet would be no fun.

I was delighted to find the English-language Lightfoot Guides series by Paul Chin and Babette Gallard[5]. The Lightfoot Guides feature detailed walking directions, accommodation suggestions, and large scale maps. At first blush they looked like a complete answer to my navigational concerns. Then I realized that their walking directions assume a Rome-bound pilgrim. I would be walking away from Rome; I would need to reverse each direction: turn left at the T intersection would have to become turn right on the road entering from the right. Trying to backtrack the Lightfoot Guides would surely get me lost. I went in search of other guides.

Next, I found the Monica D’Atti and Franco Cinti La Via Francigena Cartografia e GPS[6] guide with smaller scale maps and numerous GPS data points. The maps provided lots of detail and, with their latitude and longitude coordinates, I thought it would be almost impossible to get lost. All I needed was a GPS. I found an inexpensive one on the internet and thought I had addressed all my issues. Then I stumbled on a reference to Luciano Pisoni and Aldo Galli La Via Francigena Guida per il Pellegrinaggio[7]. It was reputed to have the most comprehensive listings of pilgrim accommodation.

Using all three, I next defined 25-35 kilometer walking days, selecting my stopping points based on the availability of pilgrim accommodation. My intention was to give myself a day off each week by walking six days in seven. Most religious accommodation does not permit a two-night stay, so most sixth and seventh nights I opted for commercial accommodation. With this framework defined, I reserved accommodations that would accept on-line reservations. Last, I booked my air travel.

I also came up with a way, I hoped, that would avoid blisters. A friend’s husband was a veteran of the Austrian army. He advised the daily use of a bear grease-based foot cream from Austria, combined with the practice of not washing your socks for a week at a time. I was not convinced about the latter, but he’d procured some of the bear grease from Austria for me. I decided to give it a try. I also remembered the standard advice to always hike wearing an inner and outer sock and to find boots with a snug but not too tight fit.

I then undertook six weeks of conditioning walks before leaving for Italy. I started walking two consecutive 17 kilometer days with a full-weight pack. Then I added a few 25 kilometer days, with more consecutive days of walking. Next I alternated 25 and 35 kilometer days finally walking 30 kilometers every other day for the week before I left. I experienced no difficulties with my joints or with blisters; I felt ready to walk without physical problems$.

Each of the more than 100 days of my walk, I maintained a journal of my experiences, observations, and thoughts. What follows consolidates those journal entries.

Italy Week 1: 202 km: Rome to Radicofani

It did not augur well.

In the morning I was to start walking the 950 kilometer Via Francigena, the way of the Franks, the Medieval route that connected Rome to northern Europe; St. Peter’s was the obvious place to start. I’d reserved a B&B, close to both the Metro and St. Peters, on the internet. But it proved much easier to find online than on the ground. The building was there, but the B&B was nowhere in evidence.

I called the contact number and was told to call another number, but the speaker’s Italian outran my fluency. Then I found someone working late in a street-front office. Between my limited Italian and his limited English, we explored my dilemma. Non é un problema, it is not a problem, he assured me. He called the contact number, jotted down the second telephone number, and wished me luck. When I finally reached the manager, he directed me back to the building I’d found before. On the call board a small card I’d missed displayed the B&B’s name.

In 1994 the Council of Europe recognized the The Via Francigena (VF) as a Cultural Route. Its status was upgraded in 2004 to that of a Major Cultural Route, a status it shares with Spain’s Camino de Santiago de Compostela. When Sigeric, Archbishop of Canterbury, received his cloak of office from the Pope in 990 CE he kept a record of his stopovers on his way back to England. While it seems likely that he followed the old Roman roads, no one knows, and most of the old Roman roads now lie underneath highways and rail lines.

Today’s VF is thus a recreation, not a surviving Medieval artifact or even a restoration. Consequently, each of my three guides described a somewhat different route.

The Lightfoot Guide took me out of Rome through the Riserva Naturale di Monte Mario. My other two guides had me follow the Via Trionfale out of the city. I decided to try the Lightfoot Guide’s more pastoral alternative. The path climbing Monte Mario, the highest of Rome’s seven hills, was tufa-cobbled and, while I could hear the city’s traffic below, it was very much in the background to bird song and the smells of the pine forest no more than three kilometers from St. Peter’s. And, from the top, I enjoyed a great view back over Rome and Vatican City.

Rome from Monte Mario

At 18 km, day one’s walk to La Storta was easy, but once past Monte Mario, its route along the busy Via Cassia was not particularly pleasant. The sidewalk quixotically switched from one side of the road to the other, forcing me to cross traffic. Then, just past Rome’s municipal boundary, the sidewalk ended and the road widened with two lanes on either side of an elevated rail line. The lanes on my side were headed out of town. I found myself distressingly walking on a narrow shoulder with my back to traffic until, a kilometer or so later, the sidewalk reappeared.

VF waymarks lead me directly to the Istituto Suore delle Poverelle, the convent where I was to spend the night. A nun took me to my €10 room, showed me the bathroom, and wished me well. The room was comfortable and could accommodate four pilgrims, but I had the place to myself. In the bathroom down the hall I had warm water for washing my clothes and for shaving, but not for the shower. I’d forgotten how invigorating a cold shower could be. In addition to providing good accommodation, La Storta featured a small wine shop where the proprietor charged me €1 for a large glass of excellent Barolo after I told her that I was walking to Santiago de Compostela.

The augury was improving.

The next day was perfect for a walk in the country. The sky was bright blue with about 30% puffy, white cloud cover. I saw pigeons and something that looked a lot like a mockingbird. I heard doves and lots of chirping little birds that I never saw. The road-sides were well flowered: poppies; buttercups; something that looked like corn flowers, but with white blossoms; purple violets in the shady places; wild iris; blue bells; a plant that looked like wild carrot or Queen Ann’s Lace, but less densely flowered; and several others.

Italy’s foundational laws must require every household to include at least one aggressive dog. Almost all properties were thoroughly fenced so the attack dogs could not actually get at me. But they tried mightily with much running about, barking, and hurling themselves against fences. Most properties displayed wholly redundant signs, some of which were quite whimsical, warning people about the presence of dogs.

Then I traversed a large recreational area where I came on a South Asian gathering. About 30 family groups were cooking over wood fires and charcoal grills. But the thing that caught my attention was the little red and yellow heraldic flags with an emblem of a lion holding a sword that marked the way to the event. They looked like the contrada, neighbourhood, banners I was familiar with from Siena.

Marking the Way to the Event

The dirt tracks and occasional bit of blacktop that made up that day’s route carried almost no traffic – a few other walkers, the odd horse rider and cyclist, that was about all. I kept my GPS on. Then, about an hour before Campagnano di Roma, its battery gave out.

Thankfully, I encountered several other varieties of Via Francigena waymark.

I was ready for lunch when I arrived in Campagnano di Roma about 14.00 but everything was closed. Finally I remembered I was in Italy, nothing was going to be open in the afternoon. I had just about reconciled myself to going hungry when I found a restaurant on the far side of town that was open. I had the place to myself. I guess Italians don’t go out for Sunday dinner. I was tired and hungry and welcomed what the proprietress brought me, brochette, steak, and a salad. She started playing early-80’s rock and asked if I minded the music. I said no.

A little later, a carbinieri, police officer, (that should probably be carbiniero) came in and sat at a back table. He seemed to have an interest in the proprietress if not the restaurant, and after a couple of minutes he went over to the stereo and turned up the volume. When someone wearing a gun adjusts the volume, it’s just the level you would have chosen! We struck up a conversation about my walk and the Via Francigena. The proprietress entered in and said that she planned to do the walk the next year.

After lunch I pushed on the last 4-5 kilometers to Sette Vene, where I had reserved a bed for the night. However, when I got there, I could not find the auberge, inn, and none of the locals I talked to had ever heard of it. I decided to push on another 8 km to Monterossi. My guides showed two churches there and, it being Sunday afternoon, I was sure I would find a priest at one or the other. Who could believe that both churches would be closed on a Sunday?

My guides placed the next nearest pilgrim accommodation 10 km further along in Sutri. I called. The Carmelite nuns could take me in. They did not even mind that it would be about 20.00 when I got there. So it ended up being an 11½-hour, 50 km day.

Sutri is a charming place with cobbled streets and stone buildings. My nun’s cell was a single with an en suite bath and, had I been patient enough to wait for the water heater, a hot shower. But I was not that patient. I didn’t think I’d make a habit of cold showers, but they’re tolerable if you are in enough of a hurry to eat. My dinner of spinach ravioli, roasted boar with rosemary, and red wine was good if a little pricey.

The next day provided a day of navigational challenges interspersed with navigational disasters. Leaving Sutri, the VF turned off the main highway just where the GPS said it should and

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