This July, I embarked on a 2 week trip across Portugal and Spain to the city of Santiago, walking 280 km along the ‘Way of Saint James’. There were many reasons I was attracted to the pilgrimage: the vast history of the route, the physical challenge, and a chance to have some real headspace after a challenging exam term in Cambridge. I had travelled a fair amount before, but always with friends and family, so wanted to try out a solo challenge.
I was particularly excited to get to Portugal, as I had never been, and loved the 2 days I spent in the city of Porto before starting my walking. I had been sad to leave England behind before the World Cup semi-finals, forgetting that Portugal is just as football mad. I had two really memorable evenings watching first France vs Belgium, then England vs Croatia screened in the central square of the city.
The first 5 days of walking were nearly entirely along the Portuguese coastline; 100km of beautifully rugged sandy beaches and gorgeous old coastal towns. I didn’t encounter any other walkers on my first day, but on my second day passed a man from Vienna who I walked the rest of the day with. The rest of the days mostly followed this pattern: a couple of hours of walking alone in the morning, and then joining up with someone else walking the same route. This made what had been an exercise in solitude turn out to be one of the most sociable trips I have been on!
I ended up changing my route slightly half way through, following two German women on what their guidebook said was a more picturesque route along the river that bordered Portugal and Spain, rather than crossing at the river mouth. This brought me to some inland historic towns I would otherwise have missed, and meant that I walked half of the Coastal Route and half of the older Portuguese Camino. This walking was tougher, but by this stage of the trip I was content in my rhythm of early mornings, 25km walking, a shower, a nap, and then an evening in a new town.
Seeing Santiago from afar after 12 days walking was pretty spectacular. However, when I got the cathedral itself (which was of course beautiful), I was quickly disappointed that reaching it meant I didn’t get to walk anymore. It might have been because I hadn’t done the walk for religious reasons, but for the culture and exercise, but I had a lot more fun exploring small towns along the way than I did visiting the tomb of Saint James. Every cliché about journeys and destinations fitted with my Gateway trip!
That said, it was great to meet so many people I’d walked with and spent evenings with over the two weeks also reach the end of their journeys. I had unwittingly arranged my trip to arrive in Santiago the day before Saint James Day, so on my final night I got to watch the carnival fireworks over the cathedral from a park on the hill.
Katie Clark
History