santiago around the world
Good morning from cloudy and rainy Holland.
Our two cents:
15 years ago I got a book about the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, a historic and cultural view, for my birthday. In 1993 the papers in Holland wrote some articles about Santiago, the Holy Year and the European Heritage of the Camino. My interest was there. We, my wife and I, are hobby-hikers and walked all over Holland, most of the time together with our neighbours. Once, in 1998, we ended up at the very south border of Holland, and looking at the landscape of Belgium we said to each other: Next time we are heading south for Rome or Santiago!
In that winter we made plans to go to Santiago from our border, we took a 'sabbatical' of 4 months and March 22nd 1999 we, the four of us, left home and walked through Belgium, France and Spain to Santiago de Compostela. Juli 6th 1999 we arrived in Santiago.
The 'adventures' of our pilgrimage are (in Dutch) on the internet:
http://home.wanadoo.nl/janbrilleman
If you don't read Dutch, you can see pictures.
After this our life is a lot of St. James, books and internet.
In 2001 we, my wife and I, started again. Because of lack of time in stages now, during our holydays. But this time we started in Switzerland, Bodensee/Konstanz. We walked the "Jakobsweg" to Geneva,
in 2002 we continued from Geneva to Le Puy-en-Velay, in 2003 from Le Puy-en-Velay to Conques (GR65) and 2004 from Conques to Moissac (GR65). So, in a couple of years we will arrive in Santiago again.
Ultreya