2018 Camino del Norte by WynChar

Post by Wynette: Where we stayed last night. Got a good night’s sleep after a hard day of touristing.

So if you are not walking the ancient paths why are you walking? For us, we are creating the kind of travel we like. The feeling in the morning when you first start out is wonderful. Stopping for coffee, and now pintxos, is a pleasure. Finally getting there is satisfying. We walk short days, 7-10 miles, and so are not usually too tired and are in time for a nice lunch. Here the late Spanish lunch hours 1-4 pm, are just perfect.

We like walking past peoples’ houses and farms and seeing how the people live. We like the little churches. We like the small restaurants where the food seems to be the same thing as their grandmothers made, simple with fresh ingredients.

In some ways rural Spain seems to be like the US was 50 years ago and we like seeing that. We like the evenings where the whole town is out walking, from the children to the grandparents.

We usually stay in hotels or pensions rather than albergues. We like having a private room and more space to spread out in.

As we get older we plan to start using the backpack transport services to make the walking easier. and maybe stick to the Caminos flatter than the Camino del Norte.

It is still a spiritual experience for us. We have modified it to fit our needs.

This is our fifth pilgrimage and fourth Camino. They have each been quite different. Comparing the Camino del Norte to the “classic” Camino, the Camino Frances:

Hilly: we heard the del Norte had a lot of up and down and it sure does. I would say it is flat maybe 20-25% of the time. The rest is up then down then up … This is typical of paths by the ocean. Sawtooth is a word the guidebooks use. The highest point is often only 200-300 meters (read yards for meters) but the total up recorded by our GPS tracker is often 1500-2000 meters and then the same down over say 7-10 miles, because the end points are usually at sea level. We are walking short days 7-10 miles so it is okay but I’m glad we are not trying to do the usual 15-18 miles that typical pilgrims go.

Beautiful scenery: the views are spectacular. We are within sight of the ocean much of the way. All of northern Spain from the west (Galicia) to the east (Basque country) have a lot of rain and are wonderfully green, especially for someone from Albuquerque. The path has been uniformly pretty and green, with the exception of walk this morning out of Bilbao through its industrial suburbs. (Full disclosure: we took the train into Bilbao and the subway part way out of Bilbao, still we walked through the industrial suburbs).

Services: not as good as the Frances but not too bad. Fewer cafes.

Food: better on the Norte. This pintxos culture is wonderful. Every bar, even in small towns has a few, usually made there, always very good. It is not just the the big cities although there is a much bigger selection in the big cities. We usually start out early and stop at a bar around 10:30 or 11 for coffee and pintxos. Then we have our big meal around 1 or 2. This is usually a “menu del dia” and has always been good, it seems like home cooking.

Culture: next post.

The pilgrim’s office in Santiago asks each pilgrim who checks in whether they walked the Camino for religious or spiritual reasons (or both, or “other”). Responses are about equal between the two. Lots of people walk the Camino for traditional religious reasons. Of course, this figure was close to 100% in the Middle Ages at the high point of the Camino.

When you spend all day walking and thinking about things, see all the other people doing the same thing, talking to people of all countries and ages, do the same routines every day (walk, wash, eat, rest, sleep, repeat) — it is hard not to start thinking about your life, what makes life worth living, what goals you have in your life, etc., that is, it brings out the spiritual side of everyone. This is one of the great things about the Camino.

The Camino Frances, the path we took in 2013, is along an ancient pilgrimage path, you walk in the steps of pilgrims from 800 years ago. My guess is that few pilgrims from long ago would be foolish enough to walk the Camino del Norte, the path we are taking now. It is so hilly and slow. So, what difference does that make? How important is it to walk an ancient path? It depends. The Norte, and the Portuguese Camino, that we walked two years ago, definitely have a different feel, the history is missing.

Long ago there was the Camino where people walked the easiest ways. In the past few hundred years there are the road builders who also go the easiest ways. Now in 2018 we find the authentic paths are along major highways, authentic but dangerous. Even along the Frances they have, for years, been changing the path to avoid dangerous road walking. Do you lose authenticity? Certainly you do in some ways.

On the Portuguese and Norte they do this extensively. We have already encountered several places where they redirected the path away from a road and up through the mountains and forests. Very pretty walking but not a way any pilgrim intent on getting to Santiago and getting dispensation for his sins would go.

Post by Wynette: We were hungry after our totally flat 5.1 mile walk this morning.

Post by Wynette: We were tourists today. We took a train to Bilbao, skipping 19 miles of the Camino. We spent the day walking around Bilbao and visiting the magnificent Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Gehry. (We didn’t go inside. We read that nothing on the inside matches the outside. But there was a lot to see walking around it. Here is more about it.) We needed a day off and enjoyed being here in the beautiful center of Bilbao. Back to the Camino tomorrow.

Post by Wynette: We walked 8.75 miles today. It seemed further. The two places where we thought we would be able to stop for food and a break were closed. We were pretty beat when we got to Gernika. Luckily a little over halfway we passed a little chapel with a bench to rest and ate some pecans and dried apricots. And, since we got an early start we arrived in Gernika by 2 pm in time for a lovely lunch. (Ensalada mixta, red beans, fresh fish, and calf liver. The liver was a translation accident, we didn’t eat much of it but by then we were already full.) After that we rested, then looked around Gernika a little and are now at the self-service laundry across from our pension. Charlie helped me get the laundry started and now he is out exploring. He is so energetic!

Post by Wynette: Tonight we are in Gernika, which is spelled Guernica in Spanish. This town has a tragic history. From Wikipedia: “On April 26, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, the town was razed to the ground by German aircraft … sent by Hitler to support Franco’s troops. For almost four hours bombs rained down on Guernica in an “experiment” for the blitzkrieg tactics and bombing of civilians seen in later wars.” We have heard that Franco’s men guarded the exits to the town so that no one could escape during the bombing. Over 1650 civilians were killed.

Of course, this is the subject of Picasso’s famous Guernica painting. The original is in Madrid. The above is a copy in tile here in Gernika.

Post by Wynette: We are mostly over jet lag and were able to get a good night’s sleep and be on the trail early (for us), around 7:30. Here is Charlie in front of the casa rural where we slept last night.

Post by Wynette: Glad that, for once, the Camino took the flatter fork.