This year, I am walking a combination of several untraveled Caminos, combined with a train ride in the middle. Here is the route:
Llanca - Montserrat - Somport - Puente la Reina - TRAIN - Ponferrada - Valle de Silencio - Camino de Invierno
First, the Cami St. Jaume starts in the Spanish coastal town of Llanca, which is north of Barcelona and near the French border. 9 days southwards to the monastery at Montserrat. (For the Camino purists out there, this "camino" is kind of made up, because it combines bits and pieces of two historical caminos. It serves my purposes well because it goes by at least four Romanesque monasteries). I expect to be all alone for this first part, but have my stages well marked out and accommodations reserved.
In Montserrat my friend Lee joins me. We will continue on the Camino Catalán (or Camí Catalá), which will take us through Huesca and then up to the Monastery of San Juan de la Peña, a marvel of Romanesque architecture. We expect this to take about 11 days.
When we finish our Camino Catalán, we will have to hop on a bus to take us back about 60 kms, so we can start the Camino Aragonés at the Spanish border. From there to Puente la Reina, where the Camino Catalán ends and the Camino Francés begins, will be about 6 days.
In Puente la Reina, we will get ourselves to Pamplona, about 20 km away, from where we'll take a train to Ponferrada. The next day, hopefully now joined up with two other peregrinas from USA, we will walk the Valle del Silencio, an amazing set of trails from Ponferrada to El Acebo to Peñalba de Santiago and from there to As Médulas. That will be three days.
In As Médulas, we join the Camino de Invierno, and hope to arrive in Santiago 9 or 10 days later.
If I had a few more weeks, I would love to walk the whole thing with no trains in between, but this is a pretty good second best.
Just to refresh my picture posting skills, I'm going to try to post a few pictures from last year's walk, when I also walked in the Valle del Silencio. When you see them you'll probably understand why I want to repeat these three days.
ONE WEEK FROM TODAY MY CAMINO BEGINS (well, more accurately stated, one week from today, my travel to the Camino begins). Buen camino, Laurie
