Were you inspired to walk the Camino because of a book or fi

[Priscillian]

If you are lucky enough to be in Santiago this week, (and being in Santiago is always lucky), do please come and hear Camino Documentary/Walking the Camino filmaker, Lydia Smith, Canadian writer and speaker, Sue Kenney, and myself the forums´s very own Happy Heretic speak on this topic at the AS Palacio del Carmen at 8:00 tonight. Admission is free, and if chatting with such lovely ladies as ourselves doesn't quite tempt you enough, there are cocktails after.
Only a few places left, so come early....

And don't forget the European Premiere of Walking the Camino at the Teatro on Rua Nova on Thursday at 8:00. Only 3 euros. I saw it last night at a special showing and embarrassed myself by seriously crying at the end. Una maravilla de verdad.

 

[Daxzentzu]

Great question!
The idea of pilgrimage was positioned into my being - from an early age. Specifically, me at the age of 15 being captivated by The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer - The idea of the close relationships that developed - the sharing of experiences - the stories - and I was particularly taken with the Nun's Tale with its poignant motif Amor Vincit Omnia - Love Conquers All.
It's been a cornerstone of my life ever since then.

Dax

 

[peregrino_tom]

Off topic?
Four of us from different parts of the charity sector used to meet up on a regular basis for business meetings. At one of them one of my colleagues announced that he wouldn't be at the next meeting - or any of the subsequent ones - as he was leaving his job to go to Paris to walk to Santiago de Compostela. I had no idea what he was talking about. About 18 months later I had a contract that came to an end and nothing to follow it. And for various reasons I felt I needed a break. A few days before the contract finished at the end of October I looked up Santiago on the web and then bought the Brierley guidebook in Stanfords. On the cold wet night of Friday November 7th 2008 I arrived in St Jean, and the rest as they say...
When I came back I traced my old colleague on Facebook. He was working for an NGO in Bangladesh. I'd thought about him several times along the Way and I wanted to thank him for inspiring me and swap experiences. But it turned out that he'd walked as far as the Spanish border and then stopped

 

[Priscillian]

Not off topic at all Tom. One of the things we discussed last night was the incredible influence of the Internet on the growth of the Camino over the past 10 years. Another one too, was the fact that books such as Cretien de Troyes' and The Canturbury Tales have long pushed pilgrims away from hearth and home.
Thank you to all who came last night. It was a great turn out!
I hope that we can continue this thread too. As I explained yesterday, in 1999 for my first Camino there were very, very few books in English. I had read Michener's Iberia aound about the time I first saw the July 24th/25th celebrations in Santiago broadcast on TV. I was living in Granada at the time. Then a friend of a friend loaned me Jack Hitt's wonderful Off the Road. I was hooked. Now I have had people write and tell me that they were inspired by Miranda's story in Pilgrimage to Heresy and wanted to experience the Camino for themselves. It's a wonderful feeling to know that you have sent someone down this road!
As for me, 14 years later, I now make my home less than 10 klms from the Camino at The Little Fox House. So just two books and a chance encounter with fireworks on the telly have not only inspired me to write my own two books about my experiences (albeit fictional with the historical framework of the Camino the most important backdrop), but changed my life forever.

 

[Saint Mike II]

I am a poor pilgrim who was inspired to walk the Camino because of what I read in Tony Kevin's 2006 book (he walked the Via de la Plata - started in Granada) and also by Alsia Piper's "Sinning Across Spain" (also walked the same Camino as Kevin). I started walking the VDLP from Merida but was unable to complete. Hopefully I will come back to finish the job.

From my discussions with other pilgrims I have found that there are almost as many reasons/inspirations for walking the Camino(s) as there are pilgrims. :lol:

 

[Stellere]

I first learned about the camino 15 years ago, during a backpacking trip in Africa. I met a lovely couple who were crossing the continent by bike, and planned on doing the camino the following year. I filed it away in my ''to-do someday'' mental list, but didn't think about it too much.

My father was inspired by the movie The Way, I think. He decided to go, and when he started talking about it I remembered that couple that I met so many years ago. So here we are now, planning our camino for next spring.

I've read some books / travel memoirs of the camino, but for the most part I haven't really enjoyed them. I did really love Fumbling: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino De Santiago by Kerry Egan. I would love to see movies or documentaries about the camino! Walking the Camino sounds like a beautiful film.

 

[JennyH94]

Brilliant question Priscillian! 'Hope it brings to the Forum some great discussion and news on books that a lot of us haven't read yet.
I've also read Tony Kevin's and Ailsa Piper's books (Australian authors) - both excellent - but the book that inspired me to walk the Camino was Colin Bowles' and Elizabeth Best's book "The Year We Seized The Day", a Camino memoir by two (again Australian) authors who met at a literary festival several years ago, kept in touch and decided to walk The Way. The book was so open and honest; both authors shared very personal details of their lives prior to the Camino which would have been painful to reveal to readers; in parts it was hilarious ... it really touched my heart.
Cheers and thanks - Jenny

 

[Tincatinker]

Short answer, no. Longer version -I was on a lengthy hardcore hike in the Picos Europa and asking for agua at a finca somewhere in Liebana I was wished "Buen Camino". My puzzled reaction prompted questions, was I not "en Camino" was I not "Peregrino"?

Back home I started to research and discovered the Camino. It took years of wishing and hoping, and eventually early retirement from my career but my inspiration for the Camino came from the puzzled face of an elderly female farmer half way up a mountain in Spain.

 

[Stellere]

Short answer, no. Longer version -I was on a lengthy hardcore hike in the Picos Europa and asking for agua at a finca somewhere in Liebana I was wished "Buen Camino". My puzzled reaction prompted questions, was I not "en Camino" was I not "Peregrino"?

Back home I started to research and discovered the Camino. It took years of wishing and hoping, and eventually early retirement from my career but my inspiration for the Camino came from the puzzled face of an elderly female farmer half way up a mountain in Spain.

I think this is my favourite story of the day. I love those little nothing moments that end up changing the course of our lives!

 

[Metropolly]

Therapy, by David Lodge, was the first I'd heard of the Camino. Then I happened to go to St Jean Pied de Port on a whim while exploring that part of France, and despite the fact I was clearly not a pilgrim I was welcomed into an empty albergue for the night by two kind hospitaleras. I took a stroll up as far as Honto and felt ready to drop - yet I kept meeting people much older than me, carrying heavy backpacks and strolling up that hill with huge smiles on their faces as though there was nothing they'd rather be doing. Suddenly I had to be part of it. That was 11 years ago and I'm still hooked.

 

[Tia Valeria]

On holiday in N Spain we first went to Santiago 19 years ago because our spanish guide book marked it as an interesting historic city. We drove from Santander to Betanzos, then on to Santiago early next day. Visiting the cathedral we saw a notice on the gate giving a Pilgrims' Mass at 12.00 for the Dia de Visitacion. We attended the service and the pilgrims walked in (this was nearly 20 years ago) and we said then that one day we too would go as pilgrims.

Our pilgrimage(s) had to wait for retirement, but that guide book, which we still have, and first visit were the inspiration.

 

[Saint Mike II]

Brilliant question Priscillian! 'Hope it brings to the Forum some great discussion and news on books that a lot of us haven't read yet.
I've also read Tony Kevin's and Ailsa Piper's books (Australian authors) - both excellent - but the book that inspired me to walk the Camino was Colin Bowles' and Elizabeth Best's book "The Year We Seized The Day", a Camino memoir by two (again Australian) authors who met at a literary festival several years ago, kept in touch and decided to walk The Way. The book was so open and honest; both authors shared very personal details of their lives prior to the Camino which would have been painful to reveal to readers; in parts it was hilarious ... it really touched my heart.
Cheers and thanks - Jenny

Hola Jenny - I have just finished reading "The Year We Seized The Day" - I cannot remember when a book has provided so many laughs, as well as a few tears. The openness and honesty was one feature I commented on when I did a review for Amazon. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your viewpoint) the book is now only available as an e_book - both Kindle and Nexus/Komo/Google. I am now really going to try to come back and walk the Frances and hope to start in August 2014. Cheers

 

[JennyH94]

Thanks Mike - I'm so glad you liked the book. I've read so many Camino memoirs over the years and this one remains my No. 1. It's a pity that it's now only available as an e_book.
Interestingly, re Ailsa Piper's 'Sinning Across Spain' ... Ailsa is doing a book talk with Monsignor Tony Doherty at Thirroul Library (coastal town south of Sydney) next Wednesday, 25 September, at 5pm. A few of us from Pilgrims in Sydney will be there and it was from one of the fantastic members of the group, who also posts on the Forum (thank you thank you!!!) that I heard about the talk. If you're in Australia you might check out Ailsa's website as she's doing some talks similar to this one in various locations around the country.
I hope the Frances happens for you next year ... BTW: don't use 'The Year We Seized The Day' as your guide !!!
Thanks again and cheers - Jenny

 

[Jnlee99]

I am a hobby hiker mostly hills around my house of around 10 miles round trip. I saw the movie and got inspired to do something more interesting than a weekend hikes.

 

[StuartM]

I'd heard of it vaguely but my first real experience of it came in France.

I do a lot of cave diving and France has some of the best sites in the world. One of these is a place called the Emergence du Ressel in the Cele valley near a place called Marcilhac. Marcilhac has an old Romanesque church and hospital which I guess was probably associated with the Camino/Chemin. Rocamadour, also a pilgrimage site, was just a few miles away too.

Anyway, I digress. Whilst preparing on the river bank you would see occasional walkers going past with scallop shells on their packs. I think I ended up asking one what it meant and he explained that he was walking to Santiago.

I thought, wow, that sounds like an adventure. It sat in the back of my mind for a few years and last year I eventually felt the draw to walk it. The Martin Sheen movie had been out a while, I hadnt seen it but had seen interviews so maybe subconsciously it had stirred a forgotten thought.

 

[Saint Mike II]

Brilliant question Priscillian! 'Hope it brings to the Forum some great discussion and news on books that a lot of us haven't read yet.
I've also read Tony Kevin's and Ailsa Piper's books (Australian authors) - both excellent - but the book that inspired me to walk the Camino was Colin Bowles' and Elizabeth Best's book "The Year We Seized The Day", a Camino memoir by two (again Australian) authors who met at a literary festival several years ago, kept in touch and decided to walk The Way. The book was so open and honest; both authors shared very personal details of their lives prior to the Camino which would have been painful to reveal to readers; in parts it was hilarious ... it really touched my heart.
Cheers and thanks - Jenny

Hi Jenny - found the info about Alisa's talk next Wednesday; had and email from Sandra - the Oct meeting is still at the Sir John Young Hotel - Spanish Club new venue not quite ready. Cheers

 

[nellpilgrim]

Well it wasn't a book but an inspirational lecture given by Roger Stalley in TCD. As a first year student (and yes that was a very very long time ago!) I attended his lectures on the 'Pilgrimage churches' of France and the route they serviced. Inspired myself and my then newly made best friend Frances made a promise that we would walk le chemin "when we are old"..........Heading towards fifty I tentatively suggested to Frances- my best friend of 32 years at that stage-that perhaps, given that 18 year olds think anyone over 40 is old, we'd probably satisfied the criteria we set as teenagers. Moral of the story?........make foolish promises to yourself and keep them.

 

[mspath]

My inspiration is similar to Nell's. In graduate school 50 years ago I attended courses by the great medieval art/architecture historian Meyer Schapiro. Several erudite lectures focused on the architecture along the Camino Frances, not only great monuments but also simple vernacular buildings. He stressed the importance of carved shells as the major iconic motif for identifying all related to Saint James as well as the immense social impact of the camino path across northern Spain; the path became the 'main street' with ‘burgos de francos’ or independent neighborhoods settled by former pilgrims nearby and, thus, the towns developed. ... Bingo I was hooked and decided that someday I would walk that path myself. Forty years later I did; fifty year later I still am.

Margaret Meredith

 

[robertt]

I arrived in Siena and decided to go for a stroll before catching up on sleep. I ran into a bunch of young people from an organisation promoting the Via Francigena. I followed them on a pilgrim tour of the streets and churches of Siena, followed by a pilgrim lunch. It felt right. As I now know, it was right!

 

[AJ]

A review of Tony Kevin's book in the Sydney Morning Herald and then the book itself provided motivation for my first camino in 2008 when I walked from Malaga.

 

[Silvester]

My father had a copy of Canterbury Tales in a plain wrapper and I voraciously read it as a child but thought many of the stories were pretty rude. However, I was researching my father's genealogy 15 years ago and discovered that his Irish forebears had been pilgrims and his Scottish forebears were really Jews escaping from Isabella La Catolica and the thought took root to one day walk where they had walked. I figured that there were 2 major destinations back in the first millenium - Jerusalem and Santiago - and thought Spain was a more credible route for both sets of ancestors. However I had no idea that modern day pilgrims took to the camino in such volumes until last year when I feel both the need to go for a long reflective walk and the quickening of the call to walk the route of my forebears. So I figured that the Irish soldiers would have done the Primitivo from the north coast and the Jewish refugees would have been heading north ASAP so I'll walk the Salvador, tag the northern coast at Villaviciosa, then walk the Primitivo and Fisterra this time.
I'm also quite taken with vernacular architecture of humble structures, mozarabic architecture and ancient structures. Coming from the antipodes, I am intrigued also with being in a landscape where people lived, loved, warred and worked thousands of years ago and left tangible artifacts.

 

[Kanga]

I first visited Santiago de Compostella 40 years ago. We were travelling in a kombi van on the way back to the UK from Morocco - in those days a rite of passage for young Australians. I had contracted pneumonia and was too sick to even walk into the Cathedral but from the van I saw a few people walking towards the cathedral with packs, in great jubilation. I was running a fever and it all had the weird unearthly feeling of a dream. I had no idea what I was seeing but it stayed with me. About 20 years later several books about long distance walking got me thinking and then I read "Cycling to Santiago" and my Santiago "vision" made sense. It then became an obsession - and so it remains!

 

[Say Simba]

I was first introduced to the existence of the Camino in the late summer of 2012 as I watched the movie, "The Way," with Martin Sheen. I also read the book, "The Pilgrimage," by Paolo Coehlo.

 

[Mark Lee]

Spring 2012 saw "Travel with Rick Steves" on PBS and was episode about Spain, Pamplona and the Camino.
Researched it further on the inernet and got copies of "The Way" on DVD and the Brierley book.
Prior to that had never heard of it, but did read "The Cantebury Tales" in high school.
Later, after walking the Camino I related to my brother all this and he told me he had known about the Camino for years, but it had never come up in a conversation between us, ha ha. Hope he gets to walk it someday. He would love it.

 

[koilife]

Although I knew of Santiago from the World Youth Day, I didn't really know much about the Camino. My first exposure was when I came across Francis Tapon's less than flattering "10 reasons why El Camino de Santiago sucks" and I gave it no further thought for several more years until my best friend started talking about walking it. He gave me the documentary from Ignatius Press, The Way of St. James. We started talking in "someday" terms, but the Camino bug bit me. By the time he and I walk it, I will have walked with all three of my sons, and possibly my wife.

 

[Jabaldo]

What I have learned from reading this forum this past year is that we all have our reasons as to "why". My wife and I were at a dinner party when someone was talking about the movie "the way". I being who I am jump, then see if there is water in the pool, came home and watched the movie that night on Netflix. My wife and I have read a few books about the Basque region of Spain and have always wanted to visit. This being said being able to walk through the Basque made sense. So here we are a few long months away from our first Camino. It is like Christmas at the age of 5, I can not wait till we start our epic journey. Our journey of life, happiness, and our journey of charity.
Buen Camino to us and to all and merry Christmas

 

[Silvester]

I was reading the other day and came across this quote:

Dear God, we pray for another way of being; another way of knowing. Across the difficult terrain of our existence we have attempted to build a highway and in doing so have lost our footpath. God, lead us into our footpath; lead us there where in simplicity we may move at the speed of natural creatures and feel the earth’s love beneath our feet. Lead us there where step by step we may feel the movement of creation in our hearts. And lead us there where side by side we may feel the embrace of the common soul. Nothing can be loved at speed. God, lead us to the slow path; to the joyous insights of the pilgrim; another way of knowing: another way of being. Amen.

(Michael Leunig, When I talk to you: A cartoonist talks to God, Sydney: HarperCollins, 2004)

It reminded me of a story of an explorer whose porters walked for two very long days and then refused to walk the next day. When he remonstrated with them, they said they needed to wait for their souls to catch up with their bodies. I've always wondered if we in our modern fast-paced, technology-facilitated haste have left our souls a long way behind!