What is the first sensation you feel when you walk into a medieval cathedral? Do your eyes squint as they become accustomed to the darkness? Do you smell incense, or candle wax? How about the cool air coming off the damp stone? Do you feel it? What do you hear? Have you ever considered a […]
Tag: cathedral
A Visit by an Italian Prince
While the name Medici may conjure up extreme art patronage, high level banking, and a very complicated business relationship with Rome, we find one member of the family who came to Santiago de Compostela from Florence as a sort of a diplomatic pilgrim. Not walking certainly, given his status, and not making this one city […]
Books, Books, Books!
This is a fun heads up! I’m starting a new series of guides to the Camino. The first will be a guide – specifically for English-speaking pilgrims – to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. You can read lots of guides. They’re dense, filled with numbers, how high the towers are, when the building went […]
A Pilgrim’s Take on Taking a Tour
But in every day, there is the walking and that’s what I have come to realize is the very thing that keeps bringing me back, time and again.
Buen Camino! Tips from an American Pilgrim
New BOOK Notice! Not a guidebook, no maps, no long-winded legends or history – just lots of stories and helpful suggestions to anyone planning their first Camino or just waiting to go back. Geared toward American Pilgrims, this book is a must-have, must-read. It’s the perfect companion to your standard guidebooks, like John Brierley, the […]
What is Breakfast Like on the Way to The Abbey?
I am spending a week volunteering at the restoration of a 12th century fortress on the Camino de Santiago just outside Pamplona in the magnificent countryside of Navarre. I greet passing pilgrims who walk by while the new owner of the property works on the project. They are on their way to Santiago de Compostela […]
Roncesvalles to Zubiri (2014)
On our way out of town, we took a few photos next to the road marker: 790 km to Santiago de Compostela. It’s kind of a rite of passage, I guess, to show the first steps taken in one’s pilgrimage. I like to tell people though, that the pilgrimage starts when you decide to go, […]
