Greenville to Madrid

Our trip to Madrid was free of glitches. All flights were on time, the weather was clear, flying was smooth. And we were actually treated with a full dinner meal with complimentary adult beverages, a snack breakfast and a nice selection of free movies to occupy the time, in Economy class!

We used the AA app to confirm the loading of our checked backpacks along the way and were pleasantly relieved to find our duffled backpacks waiting for us in the Madrid T4 terminal baggage area after clearing through customs.

Rather than add 3+ lbs to our backpack weight for our 500 mile walk across Spain, we talked about discarding the duffles in the Madrid terminal.

A gentleman in the baggage area overheard our discussion and asked if we were just going to throw them away. George was from Louisiana and after retrieving his checked trekking poles was planning to catch a plane to Porto, Portugal to walk to Santiago on the Portuguese Camino then take a train to Pamplona to walk as much of the Camino Frances as possible in the time remaining of his 4 week vacation. We saw his interest in our duffle bags and offered them to him which allowed him to consolidate and check his backpack and poles on the Porto flight. George was all smiles as we wished each other “buen Camino”.

So George and we both have had a positive experience before our Camino even begins… or perhaps it has.

We found a Renfe (train) office before leaving T4 and changed the departure time on our internet purchased tickets (27 July -Madrid to Pamplona) from noon to 9:40 a.m. This will give us more time in Pamplona to get checked into our room and organized for beginning to walk our Camino 2019 on the 28th.

Finally we took a taxi to the Madrid Airport Hilton, where we will spend the next two nights acclimating to yesterday’s 6 time zone passage.

And topping off a great start for Camino 2019 was arriving at the Hilton at 9:30 a.m. and being able to immediately check into our room. (normal check-in is 2:00 p.m.)

“The Camino provides”

Getting Ready

In December 2018, we decided to walk the Camino Frances again in 2019.  Based on our knowledge of weather, crowds and personal preferences, we decided to walk in late summer and early fall

To maintain a good level of physical conditioning year-round, we normally go together to the gym 2-3 days per week to do weights, swim or walk(treadmill or elliptical). On the non-gym days we leisurely walk 2-3 miles in our neighborhood…missing days for bad weather,sickness or travel and taking an occasional day or so off, just because we can.

By early April 2019, we began wearing our Camino footwear of choice (Lowa boots or Ecco fishing sandals for Jim, Quechua trekking sandals or HOVR Sonic running shoes for Linda) for our walks. We adjusted our routine by getting up and walking, without breakfast by 6:30-6:45 every day, regardless of the weather, etc. and walk at least 2.5 miles before returning home for breakfast. This training method conditions our feet, tests the comfort of our shoes, socks and walking habits (including waking up at the crack of dawn), giving us opportunities to optimize our methods/routines and equipment and shore-up deficiencies before we begin our Camino.

By the end of April we also started walking in the evening for another 1.5-2.0 miles with no days off.  An occasional day we might walk with a full pack and/or walking poles for longer than 3 miles… only to validate our final conditioning and equipment for longer walks. This routine continued until a day or two before departing for Spain.

We purchased our plane tickets in Mid-April.  Our flight dates were determined after estimating how far we felt comfortable walking each day, divided into the 500 miles of the Camino from St Jean Pied de Port (SJPDP), France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain.  Then we added several days at the beginning to get over jet lag and travel from Madrid (MAD)to SJPDP.  We also added an extra several days at the end to transition from pilgrim to tourist to civilian and to make our way back from Santiago to Madrid to home.

Knowing that over 50,000 pilgrims will start, many from SJPDP in late July/ early August, we made reservations for a place to stay in the small medieval town of SJPDP as well as other selected villages spaced along the Camino for the first 6-7 days of our walk. After that, we’ll generally wait until we get to our daily destination to find a place to stay that day.  Depending on pilgrim traffic, we may also call a targeted location the night before to request a hold on a room for the next night.

By early May we began to finalize our lists of what to take and began gathering and weighing items to make a backpack as light as possible with only essentials (for 75 days away from home!). 

Our knapsacks have been packed for over a week and ready to be put into dufflebags for checking. Hopefully the duffles will protect them from mishandling by airline/airport personnel and equipment.  Linda’s weighs in at 16.5 lbs and Jim’s at 20.5lbs.

We board our flight out of Greenville(GSP) tomorrow afternoon on our way to Madrid(MAD) via Charlotte(CLT) to begin Camino 2019.  Welcome aboard!

Why do the Camino again?

This is a frequent question asked by folks who hear this is not our first time.  They might add, why not hike somewhere else… that is longer, tougher, nearby, that has better, different scenery, etc.

We’ve discovered that a Camino in our future, is good for our health because the obvious physical strength and stamina challenge motivates our daily eating and exercising habits. 

But the simple answer is it’s a location thing, “ You have to be there to understand”.

Have you ever been somewhere that you wanted to return?  Is there a favorite vacation spot that you look forward to year after year?  Do you enjoy sampling local cuisine? Have you ever been to a place or had personal, positive experience that was physically challenging or peaceful or energizing or relaxing or meditative or healing or renewing or supportive or socially interactive or emotionally stimulating or introspective or refreshingly simplistic?

Well, for us, the Camino is all these things… and that’s why it keeps calling us back and why we are answering its call once more.

Coming home – post Camino 2017

At noon on Saturday, October 7, we checked out of A Casa do Peregrino and walked to the Santiago train station.

Couldn’t resist having lunch at this Santiago restaurant.

Along the way we stopped at Cafeteria Alabama (for obvious reasons) and had lunch.

After lunch we walked another half-mile to the Santiago train station and boarded the train to Madrid a few minutes before it departed at 3:12 p.m.

The boarding process was a real hoot. Our 1st Class reserved seats were in Coche 12. This would not have been a problem if any of the train coaches has Coche Numbers on the outside. We figured that 1st Class (“Preferente”) would be at the front of the train, but that wasn’t obvious either as both ends of the train looked the same. So we picked an end coche and boarded. As you might expect, once on the train we saw the ID Number for Coach 18! Oops, opposite end of train from our seats. And to make matters worse we were already committed with other passengers both behind us and in front of us.

With only 2 minutes before departure, getting off the train to advance to our coche was not an option. So we started walking down the aisle one coach at a time to arrive at our seats, hopefully, before the train began to leave. Well, it seems that we were not the only passengers who had erroneously gotten onto the wrong coche. And we were all moving in opposite directions down a very narrow aisle, most with luggage, frantically seeking our assigned seats. Eventually we made it to our seat only a few minutes after departure before the train got up to speed.

Settled in on our train from Santiago to Madrid

“Up to speed” on our Alvia series 120 high speed electric train was 245km/hr, that’s 152mph!

We traveled through mountains for the first half of the trip and it seemed like over half of the time we were going through tunnels, some of them quite long.

We made an unplanned stop in A Gudiña, a small town at the very southern tip of Galicia and near the Portuguese border. Apparently a brush fire had blocked a slower northbound train just a few minutes before A Gudiña, where it was scheduled to normally pull off to a side track to let us through. Thankfully, communications between the trains was perfect, so we stopped and waited for nearly an hour and a half for the brush fire to be brought under control and for the northbound train to pull to a side track to allow us to move on south.

As we traveled south toward Madrid the colors transitioned from green to brown and the mountains became meseta like.

Our train arrived at Madrid Chamatin train station at 9:45 (a very unusual 90 minutes behind schedule). A 14 minute taxi (19.60€) ride brought us to the Madrid Airport Hilton (142€), where we were pre-checked in to our outstanding room & home for the next two days.

We spent a quiet Sunday on the hotel terrace in the sun and shade after walking to a nearby small bar for breakfast.

Our room price is very reasonable compared to any large city luxury hotel. But we thought 25€ each for a Hilton buffet breakfast was excessive. The other meals, bar prices and other costs were equally too high, such as 5€ for a half-liter bottle of water. So we decided to get our meals and snacks, etc. off-site and the walking was good to help make the transition from Pilgrim to Tourist to Civilian.

Lunch, dinner and chill time occupied the afternoon and evening.

Monday morning after breakfast (6€ in nearby bar instead of 50€ for Hilton buffet) we walked from our hotel, across the expressway overpass into a nice, treed residential area. We moseyed around trying to get lost and eventually sat down for a relaxed lunch, outside, at a small cafe amongst the trees and apartment buildings and shops. Again, the gentle, packless walk and prolonged stop to eat helped in our transition.

Crossing expressway on way back to Hilton from Alameda de Osuna residential neighborhood.

 

We spent the afternoon getting organized and packing up for the trip home tomorrow morning. Jim settled our bill with the hotel tonight to avoid the line tomorrow morning.

Tuesday morning we caught the 8:00 a.m. complimentary hotel shuttle to the airport.

Our flight was not until 12:30 and begins boarding at 11:40. As “seasoned” travelers, we normally try to do everything early. It’s unusual for everything to go as planned when traveling. We figure that if you are going to wait somewhere, it’s best to do it as close to your final destination as possible. Therefore waiting at our gate for an extra hour is better than waiting at the hotel or in traffic or in the checkin line or in security lines or in passport check lines. And we find that many times we have no lines at all by getting there early, like this morning when we had no wait in line to check our bags, no line at security, and a ten minute line at passport check.

For us, having extra time to respond or adjust to changing circumstances is a way to prevent unnecessary stress. It’s a way to enjoy the journey more and not dread it, especially in foreign countries where one has limited command or knowledge of the language, protocols and traditions.

Madrid Barajas Airport is a beautiful and modern and huge airport. Here are some photos:

It’s 11:30 a.m. and we’re waiting at gate R02 about to board AA flight 749.

We landed safely in Charlotte 25 minutes early at 3:15 but took another 20 minutes for a gate to become available.  Beth picked us up shortly after we retrieved our bags and cleared customs.  We had dinner with her family and then drove home to Greenville, arriving safely at 8:50 p.m. ( 2:50 a.m. Spain time) after a very long day.

Great to be back on the ole’ USA after 78 days away!

Santiago- Post Camino 2017

We left the Pilgrim’s Office at 7:13 pm on Thursday, October 5, Compostelas in hand and walked back to A Casa do Peregrino and somewhat sadly, began our transition from Pilgrim to Tourist.

It began with a pasta dinner in an Italian, not Spanish, restaurant a few steps from our hotel. The relief and satisfaction of what we had just accomplished was not overwhelming, but for spontaneous, subdued bursts to each other during the meal of “we just walked 500 miles”!

A very full day under our belt, we retired to our room and collapsed, but found it difficult to sleep with so many thoughts and feelings and emotions resonating in our brains. It’s also possible that the festive atmosphere and singing and laughing and talking of pilgrims and other revellers outside our second floor balcony doors until 4:00.m. may also have been distracting.

Friday morning, as non-pilgrims, we slept in, but by habit, still had our pilgrimly breakfast of cafe con leche and tostadas in the bar across the street.

The rest of the day was spent walking around old Santiago, hanging out on our balcony watching the coming and going of pilgrims, as the Camino to the Catedral and Pilgrim’s office ran right below us.

Historical evidence suggests that Santiago de Compostela was once a Roman city, followed by Visigothic rule. The kings of Galicia and León were crowned here at the cathedral and Santiago became the capital of the kingdom of Galicia. The town was fortified in the 11th century after suffering attacks from the Muslims of Al Andalus. Santiago’s rich architectural heritage demonstrates its role as the most important city in Galicia through the ages. Santiago’s Old City was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985.

“Compostella, the most excellent city of the Apostle, complete with all delights, having in its care the valuable body of St. James, on account of which it is recognized as the luckiest and noblest city in all Spain.”- Codex Calixtinus

We returned for a visit to the Catedral and walked among the crowds, observing the incredibly large number of monuments, churches and buildings spanning nearly 1000 years of history, all concentrated in the relatively small Old Santiago City.

Transitioning from Pilgrim to Tourist meant passing through an endless supply of souvenir shops, which we did and actually made a few minor purchases to legitimize ourselves.

A nice Galician lunch and a return for dinner at Cervantes, a nice restaurant/bar, a few steps away completed our culinary experience for the day.

Saturday morning was spent gathering our gear and preparing for our trip home.  We worked on the blog and spent more time on the balcony and checked out of our room at noon.

Watching the pilgrims walk past our balcony on the last few steps of their journey was surprisingly, an emotional experience in itself. The quickened pace, the forward walking stance, the anticipation of so many souls, no matter their motivation or mode of travel to get here, is too positive to dismiss.

If one considers the possibility that there is an aura of positive energy emulating from each of the 1000 or so pilgrims from all over the world that enter this small area every day, then it’s no wonder that we feel it and that others feel it.

And it’s also possible that we take it back to our respective homes and perhaps share it with others and ultimately change lives including our own.