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The Way of Saint James

18/6/2014

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El Camino de Santiago (The Way of St James)


A couple of years ago I got the idea of writing a novel about a woman walking the Camino de Santiago, the ancient pilgrim route across the north of Spain to Santiago de Compostela.  I had visited the city of Santiago during the summer of 2010 in what, I later realised, was a Holy Year.  Holy Years occur whenever St James’ Day, 27th July falls on a Sunday, ever six, five, six and eleven years, in that order.  The last Holy Year was 2010 and the next one will be in 2021.  Knowing nothing about the pilgrimage I was amazed to see how many thousands of pilgrims descended on the city and its cathedral.  Although nowadays pilgrims from all over the world make the pilgrimage to Santiago every year, Holy Years remain special because the Church can award plenary indulgence to anyone completing the pilgrimage in those particular years.  These indulgences were first offered in 1095 for Christians who died on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.  Then, in the14th century, documentary evidence tells us that they were extended to anyone making the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela during a Holy Year.

The modern pilgrim who wants to walk the Camino de Santiago (or the Way of St James as it is also known) has a number of routes open to him: Camino Francés, Camino de Madrid, Camino Portugués, Camino Inglés and more.  The most popular one is the Camino Francés, 790 kilometres from St Jean in France to Santiago.  This is the route I chose for my heroine, partly because I had the good fortune to meet a woman who had just completed the walk herself and partly because it runs through some impressive countryside.  At 76 years of age, June had walked the 790 kilometres in five weeks, on her own.  I was impressed.  Apart from a couple of occasions when she had arranged for her luggage to be sent on ahead of her, she had carried everything in a small rucksack on her back and she had slept in the cheap and cheerful hostels that line the route.  In order to stay in these hostels you have to present your credencial, the pilgrim’s passport that you collect before you start the pilgrimage.  The owner of the hostel will stamp the passport to prove that you were there. Some of these hostels charge as little as five or ten euros a night, but you have to be prepared to use communal showers and share rooms with complete strangers.

I talked to June about her experiences on a number of occasions and gleaned from her all those interesting, small details that were necessary for me to bring my story to life: the sore feet, the bedbugs, getting lost and most of all the people she met and became friends with.

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More recently a group of my friends decided to walk the Camino but, being working women, they could not take five weeks leave to do it, so they started at O’Cebreiro in Galicia and walked from there.  Theirs was an alternative approach: they booked small hotels in advance instead of staying in the hostels and albergues and they had their luggage transported from one hotel to the next each day.  But they were still required to have their pilgrim’s passports stamped in order to receive their compostelas.

Both approaches will qualify you to collect your compostela or Pilgrim Record, a certificate that shows that you have walked at least 100 kilometres of the Camino and that your pilgrimage was made for spiritual reasons.  If you have other reasons for doing the pilgrimage they will award you a certificado, to prove that you have completed it.  Both can be collected from the Pilgrim’s Office near the cathedral.

The climax of the pilgrimage is, of course, arriving in the city of Santiago de Compostela in time for the 12.00 mass in the cathedral; this is held every day.  Even if you are not religious you cannot help being impressed by the cathedral with its Baroque facade and the relics of St James that it houses.  During the mass, while a nun sings in Gallego, a huge silver thurible containing burning incense is swung above the congregation; this is known as the Botafumeiro and was thought to have been originally used to kill the awful stench of hundreds of pilgrims who had been walking for weeks and months.  

The main entrance to the cathedral is through the Portico de Gloria.  On the north side is the Puerta Santa, Holy Door, which is opened on the eve of each Holy Year, 31st December and walled up again a year later.


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A few tips for walking the Camino:

1 It goes without saying that comfortable walking shoes are a must and make sure you break them in before you leave.

2 Care of your feet is essential, so put a tube of vaseline, some plasters and spare socks in your rucksack.

3 Unless you plan to send your luggage ahead each day, take the absolute minimum - aim for a maximum of 5 kilos.  That rucksack will get very heavy after a few hours walking.

4 Take a hat to protect yourself from the sun.

5 Be prepared for all kinds of weather - Galicia in particular can be wet.  A lightweight poncho is ideal.

6 Learn a little Spanish and you will get more from the experience.  If you really want to get away from everything leave your watch, mobile phone and camera at home.

7 Don’t take unnecessary items - there are plenty of shops on the way, including chemists.

8 Choose your season carefully - spring and autumn are best; the summer can be very hot and crowded and in the winter it can be cold and wet.  There’s even snow on the high ground.

9 Always carry some water with you.

10 And remember to pick up your Pilgrim Passport - the credencial - before you start and get it stamped at every stage of your pilgrimage.  This can be obtained from the pilgrim office in Roncesvalles or from the Confraternity of St James in London


For anyone contemplating doing the pilgrimage themselves, I recommend the excellent guide book by John Brierley, ‘A Pilgrim’s Guide to the Camino de Santiago’ ISBN 9 781844 09 1928.  It is full of useful information for the trip itself and the preparation beforehand.

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The novel I eventually completed was SANTIAGO TALES, a story inspired by the classic book Canterbury Tales, where each pilgrim has a tale to tell.

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FREE KINDLE copy of SANTIAGO TALES

20/1/2013

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From today for five days my latest novel SANTIAGO TALES is available FREE on kindle.  Why don't all you ebook lovers download a copy and enjoy following Beth as she walks the Camino de Santiago.  Beth has come to believe that her life is no longer worth living so she sets off to travel 800 kilometres in all weathers, looking for a solution to her problems.  On the way she meets many interesting characters and makes new friends, each one seeking their own solutions.  A modern-day take on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the novel explores the challenges that confront people today.

So, does Beth regain her will to live?  You will have to read the book to find out.

For your free kindle download go to  amazon.com



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SANTIAGO TALES, published at last, thanks to a little help from my friends.

7/1/2013

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Back in October I blogged about how I came to write my latest novel SANTIAGO TALES and where the idea had come from.  Now, at last, I have published it as a Kindle ebook.  

Writing a novel is the easiest part for me.  The hard work comes when your work has to be edited, and repeatedly proof read.  Luckily I have a few kind friends who are always willing to help with the proof reading but it never ceases to amaze me how easily simple typos and spelling mistakes are overlooked.  Most of my books get read a dozen times before they are ready to publish.  

A fellow author and member of Costa Women, Karen McCann, also kindly gave me an endorsement for the book.  You can read it below:

‘Joan Fallon's new book, Santiago Tales, lets you walk 790 kilometres in the shoes of a modern-day pilgrim on the ancient Way of St. James across northern Spain. Her book illuminates the entire experience, from bedbugs and blisters to the camaraderie of the hostels and long days of solitude and contemplation. A must read for anyone considering walking the Camino, or for armchair travellers who want to immerse themselves in the 1000-year-old traditions of this spiritual journey.’   Karen McCann, author of ‘Dancing in the Fountain’

I will be publishing a paperback edition of SANTIAGO TALES at the end of the month.  This will be available on Amazon and in bookshops.

So many thanks to all my friends and acquaintances who made this book possible and I hope they are looking forward to the next one.


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Santiago Tales

8/10/2012

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I'd been thinking about writing a story about the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela for some time, ever since we had made a visit to Galicia and fallen in love with the place.  All our Spanish friends had said that we had to visit the north of Spain, how cool it was in the summer and so green.   So one July we packed up the car and drove across Spain in temperatures that threatened to reach 50° C, until we arrived at Cambados on the Rias Baxas.  Everything our friends had told us about Galicia was right: the air was fresh and cool, the fields were lush and green and the coast line was spectacular.  After the heat of Andalusia we were ecstatic.  So we spent our first few days relaxing by the coast, eating the freshest and tastiest seafood we'd ever had and drinking copious glasses of the excellent wine from the area, Alberiño.  My Protestant genes will not let me laze about enjoying myself for too long and soon I was suggesting we should move and seek out a little culture.  
We drove a few miles up the coast to the famous city of Santiago de Compostela.  It was 2004, the Holy Year for pilgrims to the city.  People came from all over the world to pay homage at the shrine of St James, the patron saint of Spain, in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.  The remains of his body are in the crypt under the altar in the cathedral and draw thousands of pilgrims each year.  That year there were almost 180,000 pilgrims.  Luckily not all of them converged on the city in July, but nevertheless Santiago was packed with weary travellers.  It was impossible not to be intrigued by the spectacle and to admire the tenacity of these people, some old, some young, who had walked hundreds of kilometres  along the Way of St James or, as it is known in Spanish, El Camino de Santiago, just to be there.  It was also difficult not to speculate on the motives that drove people to walk across fairly difficult terrain and stay in pretty spartan accommodation for weeks on end, just so that they could have their pilgrims' passports stamped and receive their compostela, (completion certificate) at the end of the journey.  Some were obviously driven by religious reasons but not all of them.  It was this speculation that led me to write SANTIAGO TALES, my twenty-first century version of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.  However I did not begin to write the book until 2012, eight years later.  By chance my neighbour told me about a friend of hers who had just completed the pilgrimage from Roncevalles to Santiago de Compostela in five weeks, a distance of 780 kilometres.  An admirable feat by anyone's standards, but when she told me that the woman in question was seventy-six years old, my admiration soared.  She introduced me to this intrepid walker , who kindly told me about her adventures.  That was when I knew I had to write my book.  So thanks to her, SANTIAGO TALES was born.  In it the main character, a woman in her fifties, has a particular reason for walking the Camino, the details of which are revealed on the way.  On her journey she meets other pilgrims who, each in turn, in the manner of The Canterbury Tales, tell their own story.

SANTIAGO TALES is due to be published later this year.


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    Joan Fallon is a writer and novelist living in Spain.

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