Preparation

About 7 years ago I first heard of the Camino Frances trek in Spain and have wanted to do it ever since. Traditionally the hike commences in St.Jean Pied de Port in France and ends in Santiago de Compostela, Spain (807km). The path passes over the Pyrenees mountains and across the meseta, through villages and some major towns, then into the mountains of Galicia, following yellow painted arrows on the road on walls of buildings. Some of those villages are only there to support the 'pilgrim' doing this trek, with accommodation called alburgues, municipal and private hostels, b&bs and the occassional hotel. You obtain a pilgrim passport where you decide to commence, and collect stamps at every alburgue or bar/cafe along the way until you arrive in Santiago where the Pilgrim office then registers your details and issues you with the compostella to show you completed the trek. You are then entitled to 3 meals in Santiago and most attend the daily mass. The story behind 'the way' is St James the apostle, after the crucifixion of Christ sailed to Galicia to bring the word and walked this 'way' to Santiago, also it is said that the path follows the Milky Way and it also runs along one of the earths ley lines, so there's definately something quite interesting about the place. Some people walk the way for religious reasons, however ours is purely for the adventure.

So..as much as I'd love to experience the Pyrenees and walk the whole of the trek, we would also like to spend some of our 5 weeks rec leave seeing the rest of the country and preferably by transport! We decided to commence our hike in a city called Leon, which works out only to be 340km to Santiago, which should take us about 15 days (hopefully). We will still get our compostella and take in alot of the sights, and probably still get blisters!

Our itinerary after the Camino is very vague at the moment and we can't pre book anything as our finish date in Santiago is kind of up to circumstance! But..We do intend to fly back to Madrid, train it to Cordoba to see the amazing Mezquita, a Moorish mosque that was constructed in 784AD inside there are over 1000 columns of jasper, onyx, marble, and granite. Then, we train to Seville, where we understand could take days to take it all in. In Seville, we hope to see the Alcazares, the royal residence built 1364, the Seville cathedral which hosts the tomb of Colombus, and enjoy some flamenco, which shouldn't be a problem considering the Festival of Flamenco will be on when we are there. We hope to hire a small car and drive to Ronda via the Pueblos Blancos. We are very excited about seeing Ronda, it stands on a towering plateau, which is divided in two by a plunging river gorge known as El Tajo. El Tajo is spanned by a bridge called the Puente Nuevo which was built in the eighteenth century and provides access to both sides of Ronda. Also, the Annual Bull Fighting Festival is held in Ronda for the month of October, so I guess we'll have to see a bull or two brought to its demise? Kev wants to stay in the Parador there, here's a shot of it - he reckons we need a treat after all the hard going, he's probably right!

Parador in Ronda

Then onto Granada, where we're looking forward to spending the day exploring the Alhambra and its grounds. We then have to book flights to Barcelona, do a day trip to Figures to see the Salvador Dali museum, then fly home from there. This is all in the plan, but it could end up completely different. Sounds exhausting just writing it.

So..with my very basic Spanish, some maps, a phrase book, couple of credit cards and each other, we are looking forward to what life will serve us up, the people we meet, the challenges we will face, and the life experience and memories!

Map of the Camino Frances trek, if you look closely you can see where we will be commencing our path, its a town called Leon and the state is also called LEON(pink):-

So that's the intro..lets hope I can make many more additions along the way. We have 2 days in London initially so we can't wait to see the Tower of London, take a ride on the London Eye and see all the sights there. No doubt the arrival/departure in Heathrow will be a nightmare, so we are ready for the worst with that. I'm going to try and put photos up when I can. Stay tuned chicos! Vamamos!

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