barefoot just into Santiago???

[Eve Alexandra]

I rewatched 6 ways to Santiago this weekend and noticed that they showed a lot of people walking the last few blocks to the cathedral barefoot. Is that a thing? Or was it just hot the day they were filming?

 

[Mike Savage]

I don't recall seeing anyone walking barefoot into Santiago.

 

[MTtoCamino]

Might just have been that groups idea. People come up with interesting ideas for the last day walking into Santiago, it is exciting yet sad as you realize the people around you may be the last time you see them.

 

[AJ]

I haven't seen anyone do this, but I would not be surprised if I did. Barefoot pilgrimage is not unusual in Ireland I am told.

 

[C clearly]

I didn't see anyone doing this in November or March.

 

[whariwharangi]

Please keep your shoes on. Your feet will thank you.

 

[SabsP]

I knew that member Sillydoll posted an interesting article on being barefoot on the Camino ( in a historical context ).

https://www.caminodesantiago.me/community/threads/barefoot-on-the-camino-frances.8629/

See her attachment in the post nr. 4.

 

[jgpryde]

I knew that member Sillydoll posted an interesting article on being barefoot on the Camino....

And yet another fascinating perspective on the Camino.
I noticed that one of the links within SillyDoll's post has since broken but can be found at http://www.barefooters.org/barefoot-gallery-el-camino-de-santiago-spain-1/.

Thanks for sharing this reference.
-jgp

 

[SabsP]

And yet another fascinating perspective on the Camino.
I noticed that one of the links within SillyDoll's post has since broken but can be found at http://www.barefooters.org/barefoot-gallery-el-camino-de-santiago-spain-1/.

Thanks for sharing this reference.
-jgp

Thank you for the update . I also got some links on barefoot pilgrimage but they are in Dutch so not very useful here.Even if you can't read it , it has some good photo references.
http://www.tenbunderen.be/bedevaarten/compostelarituelen.html

 

[Anemone del Camino]

Never seen it. The only person walking barefoot along the way I ever encountered was sadly mentally ill.

 

[SabsP]

Never seen it. The only person walking barefoot along the way I ever encountered was sadly mentally ill.

http://www.thejournal.ie/croagh-patrick-pilgrimage-advice-2902151-Jul2016/
Although it is adviced not to , some pigrims in Ireland still do this.

And I remember years ago in Guadalupe, Mexico lots of people walking the last hundred metres barefoot.

 

[Kanga]

For a short while I walked alongside a girl who had abandoned her shoes and was walking in bare feet. She did have some rock tape over the balls of her feet.
I'm currently reading a book "Running with the Kenyans" which is all about the extraordinary ability of the Kenyan runners. They learn to run barefoot - as children - and their feet naturally strike the ground forefoot first, instead of with a heel strike. It is thought this is one reason they are so fast. So maybe that barefoot is best. Provided you have spent all your life barefoot and the soles of your feet are as tough as nails!

 

[IngridF]

Sue Kenney walks barefoot all the time...and yes also on the Camino. She has designed a special Sandle looking foot cover that have no soles. This way she avoids awkward situation where this practice is frowned upon.

I walk barefoot around the house and on dewy morning meadows on the Camino. ..I am a bit squimmish when it comes to dirty sidewalks and plazas...so I keep my shoes on in Santiago.

 

[Diane Kinney]

A few years ago I encountered three young pilgrims, a woman from Germany, a woman from Canada and a man from England. They planned to remove their shoes outside the cathedral and walk in barefoot. They did and danced up the aisle with joy. Seeing that joy was infectious.

 

[Levi]

Last year I met a young Australian guy who was walking the whole Camino (slowly) in bare feet. 'Free the feet' he said, ' and free the mind'.

It was autumn. It was Galicia. All those cows. All those spiky chestnuts....he was struggling.

I don't know if he managed the whole way barefoot. I hope he did...

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

Peg and I came across an Appalachian Trail thru-hiker who was hiking barefoot. This was only around 65 miles along (about 100 km or 3% done) so it may not have worked out.

 

[SabsP]

In different Faiths all over the world barefoot walking is a known theme.

Some interesting links.
http://www.viewfromthepier.com/compass-rose/pilgrimage-sacred-destination-or-spiritual-journey/
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanit...a/pilgrimage-routes-and-the-cult-of-the-relic

 

[Davey Boyd]

Last year I met a young Australian guy who was walking the whole Camino (slowly) in bare feet. 'Free the feet' he said, ' and free the mind'.

It was autumn. It was Galicia. All those cows. All those spiky chestnuts....he was struggling.

I don't know if he managed the whole way barefoot. I hope he did...

He did, I met him in Santiago. He carried on to Finisterre and Muxia too. He did say it was very hard going and he said he ended up managing only 10 - 15km a day

I have met a few people who walked the Camino barefoot. One lad walked barefoot from Belgium. He also was covering shorter distances, he said 10 - 12km was about ok for him.

Davey

 

[oursonpolaire]

Sue Kenney, mentioned above, has actually designed barefoot shoes (without soles) for this purpose. Other than her (and two Germans walking barefoot along the beach in Laredo on the del Norte), I have only ever seen one person walk the Camino barefoot, and that's over nine Caminos.

 

[Mark Lee]

I never saw anybody walking into Santiago barefoot. Come to think about it, the only time I saw barefoot pilgrims walking in was in Finisterre on the beach. In all likelihood they put their footwear back on when they hit concrete/blacktop again.
Yeah, I would guess that whole barefoot thing in the movie was because it was a movie. You got to wonder how many takes there were to catch just the right reaction upon seeing the cathedral, etc....

 

[Eve Alexandra]

Well I am sort of glad to hear it isn't a thing...I have a feeling my feet will look pretty bad by the end of this trip...no sense baring them for the world to see. lolol

 

[Mark Lee]

Well I am sort of glad to hear it isn't a thing...I have a feeling my feet will look pretty bad by the end of this trip...no sense baring them for the world to see. lolol

Yeah, you gotta take anything filmed about walking the Camino for entertainment value with a grain of salt. Nothing is real and spontaneous if there's a camera and crew attached.
There's a set of youtube videos from a few years ago showing a Spanish actress walking the Camino. It seems that in a few of them she panhandles free stuff from various merchants in the towns. Chocolate, bread, fruit, etc. I thought that was kind of odd. A rich celebrity bumming stuff off of working people. I wondered maybe if it was from some urban myth that one has to depend upon charity while on the Way. Sort of mimic poor pilgrims of old.

 

[Anemone del Camino]

How myths start. That and the cruz de ferro.

 

[Mark Lee]

How myths start. That and the cruz de ferro.

Yeah, as much as I enjoyed the movie "The Way", I wonder how many people watch it and believe that one must bring a stone for the cruz de ferro. One must walk to Muxia. One must acquire a pilgrim family. etc etc etc

 

[wcsjms]

James from Australia walked the Camino from SJJP to Santiago BAREFOOT and he was quite lucid, young gentleman and a pleasure to walk with, dine with and have a spot of rum with. All who encountered him enjoyed his company. We keep in touch with him since we parted ways in Santiago in Nov.2016 . You might have seen him and his dreadlocks along the Way which seem to have set some people back from him. Their loss !

 

[Davey Boyd]

James from Australia walked the Camino from SJJP to Santiago BAREFOOT and he was quite lucid, young gentleman and a pleasure to walk with, dine with and have a spot of rum with. All who encountered him enjoyed his company. We keep in touch with him since we parted ways in Santiago in Nov.2016 . You might have seen him and his dreadlocks along the Way which seem to have set some people back from him. Their loss !

Ah yes James, he was a good lad. I think it may have been you who introduced me to him at a bar in Santiago where I was hanging out for a few days. Iam the English ex-squaddie anarchist ha ha!

Hope you well, Davey

 

[jgpryde]

Thank you for the update . I also got some links on barefoot pilgrimage but they are in Dutch so not very useful here.Even if you can't read it , it has some good photo references.
http://www.tenbunderen.be/bedevaarten/compostelarituelen.html

Actually, Google Translate did a credible job of converting the Dutch to English and made the site very interesting. Thanks again.
-jgp

 

[SabsP]

Actually, Google Translate did a credible job of converting the Dutch to English and made the site very interesting. Thanks again.
-jgp

Good you find it interesting! And good to know google translate didn't go too silly...

 

[wcsjms]

Ah yes James, he was a good lad. I think it may have been you who introduced me to him at a bar in Santiago where I was hanging out for a few days. Iam the English ex-squaddie anarchist ha ha!

Hope you well, Davey

Davey, really great hearing from you and I believe it was Rachele and Chad who introduced you to James as we came struggling in to Santiago a few hours after them. when we got to Santiago, all of you were well into the "spirits" lol. We're planning either a Camino de Norte' or another Frances this fall (2017). Rachele and Chad are headed to Europe to play for a bit this summer. Buen Camino !

 

[Mark Lee]

Something being a thing is a powerful thing . I'm glad that you asked this question! When we stayed in Cizur we were told by a friendly and helpful local person that we must walk barefoot over the bridge in Puente la Reina which was our next stop. I'm a sucker for old traditions and was determined to follow his advice but backed out of it when online research did not confirm this and there was also not a single person who crossed the bridge barefoot when I was there. I later thought that he had been playing a joke on us gullible strangers.

Today I decided to google for "peregrinos descalzos" and lo and behold a description of this part of the camino frances turns up on the website of eldiario.es that says (my translation): If you spend the night at Puente La Reina, do not cross the bridge until the following day. Tradition tells us to wait until the morning and do this barefoot. You have to hang your boots onto your backpack and feel the stones under the soles of your feet, just as millions of pilgrims have done before you.

Has anyone heard of this and knows of an older historical source?

When I stayed in Puente la Reina in 2013 I crossed the bridge 2-3 times while I was there (to and from the albergue into town) as I was staying in the albergue on the other side, up the hill (a nice albergue too, with a nice swimming pool we swam in that afternoon). I was walking with five Spaniards at that time, and none of them mentioned walking over the bridge barefoot and I never saw anyone doing it.

 

[wcsjms]

Ah yes James, he was a good lad. I think it may have been you who introduced me to him at a bar in Santiago where I was hanging out for a few days. Iam the English ex-squaddie anarchist ha ha!

Hope you well, Davey

OH BTW ... Chad and Rachele are the young ones in our profile pic.

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

Today I decided to google for "peregrinos descalzos" and lo and behold a description of this part of the camino frances turns up on the website of eldiario.es that says (my translation): If you spend the night at Puente La Reina, do not cross the bridge until the following day. Tradition tells us to wait until the morning and do this barefoot. You have to hang your boots onto your backpack and feel the stones under the soles of your feet, just as millions of pilgrims have done before you.

Has anyone heard of this and knows of an older historical source?

For things like this I like to get pre-internet information by searching books.

I plugged in peregrinos descalzos Puente La Reina for the box "with all of the words" at https://books.google.com/advanced_book_search and selected the language to be Spanish and gave a cutoff date of 1990 to end up getting these results:
https://www.google.com/search?lr=la..._min:Dec+29_2+699,cd_max:Dec+31_2+1990&num=10

 

[wcsjms]

Last year I met a young Australian guy who was walking the whole Camino (slowly) in bare feet. 'Free the feet' he said, ' and free the mind'.

It was autumn. It was Galicia. All those cows. All those spiky chestnuts....he was struggling.

I don't know if he managed the whole way barefoot. I hope he did...

It was James from Australia and yes, he walked the entire distance barefoot from SJJP to Santiago. We all stay in touch with a Facebook page one of our fellow trekkers started so we who walked together could stay in touch besides email. Very cool thing.

 

[SabsP]

I hope @sillydoll here comes with her enormous memory and wealth about the medieval history of the Camino to tell us about the religious/ cultural ideas of the barefeet pilgrims.

 

[SeaHorse]

As far as I remember you have to approach the Cathedral on your knees. Then technically it doesn't matter if you have something on your feet. And NO, I didn't and in 2 days there didn't see anybody else doing that.

 

[Deleted member 12253]

I rewatched 6 ways to Santiago this weekend and noticed that they showed a lot of people walking the last few blocks to the cathedral barefoot. Is that a thing? Or was it just hot the day they were filming?

Not unusual. Saw 1 man barefoot in Pyreenes. People in Ireland climb the reek or holy mountain in bare feet. We are a tough race. We even row in a curragh or naomhog to Santiago. TG 4 programs last night

 

[Kathar1na]

Hah, finally!!! I follow an Italian camino group on Facebook. Today someone had posted a message about the bridge in Puente la Reina, saying that he had waited until the morning and then crossed the bridge barefoot, according to a medieval tradition. A number of people replied and said that they knew about it and had done so, too, and that the tradition is well known to local people.

So I had not been told a fib by a local in Zizur Mayor a few years ago!

However, nobody really knew an explanation for it. Or rather, an explanation, supported by sources, that I find credible. So I’m still looking.