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All roads lead to Santiago, but which one to choose?

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My way fromSaint-Jacques de Compostela is off the beaten track. It goes through many variants through the mountains and other detours which, from my point of view, have a historical and/or religious interest.

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I try to walk modestly in the footsteps and rhythm of the pilgrims of the Middle Ages. 

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It was at the age of 39 that I decided for the first time to embark on the paths of Saint-Jacques. I left alone in 2013 (without booking anything) from the city of Puy-en-Velay by borrowing the Via Podiensis, a historic route that follows the GR 65 trailto Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.

 

From this great crossroads which attracts thousands of pilgrims, I have chosen to borrowr the GR10 trail to the towns of Hendaye and Irun then to join the Basque path from the inside.

 

Since then, every year, as soon as my schedule allows me, I have completed stages of around 200 to 300 km on foot in complete autonomy. It was not until July 2017 that I arrived in Castile y Leon, in the city of Burgos to join the Camino Frances, the "royal road" well known to all, where waiting for methe famous but very dreaded crossing of the Meseta. It's a vast agricultural plateau as far as the eye can see where the heat can be so crushing in summer that many of us try to avoid it by taking the bus...

 

Unfortunately my journey was interrupted for a while during the Coronavirus pandemic. While waiting for better days, I preferred to walk in France. I then followed in 2020 the Stevenson path (crossing the Cévennes via Mont Lozère) then the following year that ofSaint Guilhem (via Mont Aigoual)that I intend to extend one day towards the Pyrenees "to come full circle".

 

Despite my 2000 km already covered on foot, my pilgrimage which does not follow the "classic routes" has only just begun!!! It will draw a rollercoaster (infinity symbol), if I'm lucky enough to see the end of it :-)

 

In 2022, after crossing the Eastern Pyrenees during the summer by the GR 10 trail, I finally returned to Spain in Léon to take theroad to San Salvador.I crossed the Cantabrian mountain range to reach the city of Oviedo, a major place of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages.

 

The rest of my itinerary will be in Galicia on the primitive path towards Lugo.... to finally reachin the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela and probably other places still undefined, because as we saythe path is the destination ...

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I have the feeling that my adventure is far from over!!!

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As the Brazilian writer  wrote so wellFernando Sabino :

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“Of all, there remained three things:

the certainty that everything was beginning,

the certainty that it was necessary to continue,

the certainty that it would be interrupted before it was finished.

Make questioning a new path.

Make the fall a dance step.

Make fear a staircase,

dream, a bridge,

looking for a meeting..."

And if in your turn, you plan to take your pilgrim's sticks,what would be your departure city?