Category Archives: Two sisters and a Camino

We slept in the attic of the church on sleeping mats. We made sure to pick a mat under a small skylight which we opened. We could have wished upon a star but sleep seemed to take over. The priest who said mass here last year had died. Although he didn’t speak English (the onlyContinue reading “Day 10, Oct 6 – Grañon to Burgos”

In the last few days the subject of grief has come up again and again. There are probably many pilgrims walking The Way in memory of someone. Pilgrims have left small plasticized photos of their loved ones tied to a fence. A tree is laden with ribbons, each ribbon has a name written on it.Continue reading “Day 8 Oct 4. – Los Arcos to Azofra…thoughts”

It was a pleasure to stay in Azfora. The albergue was lovely (no bunks) and a fresh breeze blowing over the hills. Did I mention that I now had four blisters. A lovely woman from Somerset offered me some miracle blister plasters. I tape my feet carefully each morning and hope they stand up theContinue reading “Day 9 – Oct 5th – Azfora to Ganon- Cathy’s View”

Rather than repeat the daily routine, I thought I would tell you more about my Scotiabank woes and some Camino gossip. Scotiabank woes Last year in Mexico Amanda told me about the Scotiabank advantage. No foreign transaction fees and they have partner banks in Europe and Mexico, so ATM fees are also waved. So IContinue reading “Day 7, Oct 3, Estella to Los Arcos”

We headed off bright and early leaving Punta le Reina by way of the Queens Bridge. The bridge was commissioned by a local Queen in order to make the pilgrims journey easier. In fact a great many bridges were constructed to ease the journey of the ancient pilgrims throughout Spain. Pilgrims brought a certain amount ofContinue reading “Day 6 – Penta la Reina to Estella- Cathy’s View”

Left at 7a.m. But we stopped only 5 mins later for coffee . Joyce, Cathy and I had laughed when, in a 4 bed pod back at Rovevalles we had shared it with Piet from Rotterdam and did that count as sleeping with him? Last night we had 8 men in our bunk bed sectionContinue reading “Day 5, Oct 1 – Pamplona to Puente la Riena”

The days are melding together and I seem to be behind in my blog. The rhythm of the days start with a wake-up at 6am ( sometimes earlier if early risers start to move), wash and brush, packup, breakfast sometimes and out the door around 7am before the sun rises. We have discovered that breakfastContinue reading “Day 3,4,5-Cathy’s View”

We walked again with Joyce from India currently living in England. Hung out with Rob and Linda from Jasper at Hemmingway’s favorite hangout Café Iruna in Pamplona and slept in an albergue on the second floor where the ceiling was far above us, the floor was of thick glass and a 100 bunk beds linedContinue reading “Day 4, September 29 – Zubiri to Pamplona”

We were awoken by Jozef who had introduced himself last night when we arrived. For the last 15 years, as a volunteer hospitalario at this Dutch-run monastery turned albergue, he has been the Singer of Roncevalles. At the time we weren’t too sure what this meant. He was Dutch and his English wasn’t great andContinue reading “Day 3, Sept 29th- Roncevalles to Zubiri”

3We left Orrison after breakfast at 7:50 just as the sun rose. We hoped to get an earlier start to beat the heat but we needed coffee to kickstart the day. Orrison knows how to serve coffee. It comes in a deep soup bowl and you sip it like a cup . Good coffee andContinue reading “Day 2 – RONCESVALLES- Cathy’s view”