🥾 Jan 2026 · Decided in January gray: this spring I walk the Camino Francés — 790 km, St-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Santiago. Asked for five weeks off. Said it out loud so I couldn't unsay it.
Walking the Camino: 790 km to Santiago
🎒 Feb–Mar 2026 · The Great Pack Weigh-In. Rule: under 8 kg or it stays home. Casualties: the second book, the third shirt, every 'just in case.' First lesson: you need less than you think.
🛫 Apr 20, 2026 · St-Jean-Pied-de-Port. Collected the pilgrim credential and scallop shell #1. Slept badly. Tomorrow: the Pyrenees.
⛰️ Day 1 · The Napoleon Route: 1,200 meters up and over into Spain, through cloud, past vultures riding the ridge wind. Arrived at Roncesvalles a broken machine. 25 km down, 765 to go.
🦶 Day 3 · The first blister, as prophesied. An Italian grandmother fixed it with needle, thread, and terrifying competence. Her advice: 'the Camino gives what you need, rarely what you want.'
🍷 Day 6 · Past the Alto del Perdón wind turbines to Puente la Reina. Evening: pilgrim menu, three courses and wine for €14, shared with a Korean teacher, a Brazilian cyclist, a silent Dane.
🌾 Day 9 · Rioja: vineyards to every horizon, and the Irache fountain that dispenses FREE WINE to pilgrims. Took the traditional sip at 9am. When in medieval tradition…
🚶 Day 12 · The rhythm installed itself: walk at dawn, coffee at 10, arrive by 2, wash socks, nap, sleep by 9:30. Haven't known the day of the week for a week. Best feature so far.
😶 Day 15 · The Meseta — the flat plateau people warn about and some skip. Eight hours of wheat, sky, and my own steps. The guidebook says monotonous. Wrong: it's where the noise runs out.
🧠 Day 17 · On a dead-straight Roman road, the unexplainable thing happened: the problem I'd hauled from home quietly resolved itself. Walking is thinking. The Meseta is its cathedral.
🏥 Day 19 · Shin scare near Sahagún — the pain that ends Caminos. Pharmacy, ice, a rest day in León with tapas and the leg up. Rule two: the schedule serves you, not the reverse.
⛪ Day 20 · Rest-day bonus: León cathedral's stained glass at golden hour. Sat an hour with my boots off. Some detours are the point.
🌄 Day 23 · Into the mountains of León. At Cruz de Ferro, pilgrims leave a stone carried from home. Left mine — 500 km for exactly this. Lighter going down, in both senses.
🍇 Day 25 · O Cebreiro in fog: into Galicia through round Celtic houses. Suddenly green, wet, woodsmoke and eucalyptus. The shell markers now count DOWN: 150 km.
👣 Day 28 · The crowds arrive at Sarria (the 100 km certificate minimum) — a river of clean new shoes. Grumbled an hour, then remembered: everyone's Camino counts. The trail teaches; I'm slow.
🌧️ Day 31 · Galician rain, the horizontal kind. 28 km fully waterproofed, fully soaked anyway, laughing with the Dane — who finally talks. He was walking off a divorce; the Meseta fixed him too.
🗼 Day 33, May 24 · Monte do Gozo — 'Mount of Joy' — first sight of Santiago's spires. Pilgrims cried, whooped, or went quiet. I did all three, in that order.
🏁 May 24, 2026 · Praza do Obradoiro. Pack off, flat on my back on thousand-year-old stones, staring at the cathedral like everyone since the ninth century. 790 km, 33 days, one pair of boots.
📜 May 25 · The Compostela — my name in Latin. The volunteer asked the traditional question: 'Why did you walk?' Wrote the honest answer: 'To find out.'
🌊 May 27 · Epilogue: three more days to Finisterre, where the trail runs out of land. Watched the sun sink into the Atlantic with six friends from four continents I hadn't met six weeks ago.
💬 What the trail said · You need less than you carry. The body complains, then delivers. Strangers become family at the speed you allow. Most things untangle if you walk, daily, in one direction.