The Way of St James

Small German towns often have a vibrant cultural and social life. Our small town, Viernheim (under 30 000 inhabitants), has a night school and a Catholic Family Education Centre offering courses and lectures on wide range of topics. There are concerts in the winter in several of the churches. Obviously the walking and the ski clubs have a number of slide show cum lectures on popular and also unknown mountain areas. However something that never fails to amaze us are the activities of a local climbing, canoeing and camping shop: Christian’s Outdoor Center. Christian organises a series of lectures in winter which do not only cover the usual rambles in the Alps or cycling along disused railway lines in Canada, but such topics as humour in mountain climbing and exhibitions of historic books on the Alps. (BTW Contrary to popular British received wisdom, German can be a very funny language. We have dined out on several occasions on the story of the American proposal of marriage on Mount McKinley, that we heard one night in his shop.)
Last Thursday 6. April 2006 Christian organised a information fair on the Camino de Santiago or Way of St James, the main part of which runs from St Jean Pied de Port in France to Santiago de Compostella in Spain. Obviously the pilgrims in earlier times did not hop in car or on a train to get to the Pyrenees. They walked all the way. There are connecting routes across western Europe. Christian thus invited local people who have experience on these routes to set up a poster display. A number of them had walked and/or cycled from Viernheim or nearby to Santiago de Compostella, which is at least 3000 km.
One spoke of the spiritual aspects of the journey, starting with the decision what to pack. In her words the trip taught her its first lesson before she started, in deciding what was really necessary.
Another walker covered 25 km a day for 100 days from Heppenheim to Santiago via the Mediterranean coast, across the Basque country and then along the Atlantic coast.
Another followed the Silver Route from Seville to Santiago pulling a trolley with his belongings.
Another couple spent their holidays over several years walking part of the major route from St Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostella. As did the cyclist there who cycled and walked with his wife and friends all the way from Viernheim. We did discuss with him the cyclist’s problem with the Way of St James. What do you do with the bike after you have ridden to Santiago? The railways in the north of Spain will only accept bicycles if they are partially taken to bits and popped in a bag. Our fellow cyclist at the event said that they had put the bikes as they were on the trains and argued. The trouble is our Spanish is not that good. We could see three solutions:
Fly back and pay the extra for the bike.
Take a folder and there are then no problems on the trains.
There are long distance buses from Santiago de Compostella to the rest of Spain and presumably Hendaya/Hendaye that will take bicycles without having to unfold or disassemble them, but the buses need to be booked in advance.
There was also a Viernheimer who is organising a bus trip to the classic section of the Camino in late spring.
We also discovered, although we had actually come across this before, that there are two 130 km long Jakobswege (Ways of St. James) in Rheinland Pfalz west of Speyer. These strike us as good routes to follow with vineyards, hills, views across the Rhine Plain, decent wine and beer, hearty food and plenty of history from the Celts to present day technology. The Tourist Office in Speyer (touristinformation@stadtspeyer.de) can organise a week’s walking holiday (B&B plus a daily picnic) for around 300 € per person sharing a room.
We met an acquaintance who was due to set off for St Jean Pied de Port the next day to walk to Burgos and will be fighting her way through the rain at present. Personally we are not so taken with the Way of St James. It strikes us there are lots of routes much nearer to hand that offer one the chance to reflect on the meaning of life without having to use so much fossil fuel to have a philosophical moment.