Here we are again. Encarnita and I will be traveling to Burgos, Spain at the start of May to pick up where we left off last year on the Camino de Santiago. You will remember we had walked 350 kilometres after crossing the Pyrenees from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port on the French side as far as Burgos in the north of Spain before the change in Maria Luisa's condition brought us back to Toronto.
Many things happened during this past summer and the winter now drawing to a close. Our family has been adjusting to the loss of Maria Luisa. Frank and Gina, who accompanied us on the Camino, were married in November. John Anthony and Li have been up to Toronto several times, and Sara decided not to take up a position teaching in Spain in order to be with the family.
The Camino, however, never completely departed our minds. Encarnita and I knew we would return to finish the remaining 450 kilometres. Last October we went on a backpacking trip with Sara, John Anthony and his brother-in-law Beau on the Ganaraska Trail, a wilderness area north of the Kawartha Lakes. We wanted to see the autumn beauty of the Canadian shield and to keep ourselves in condition for the Camino. The pictures displayed in this blog were taken on this three day excursion.
This spring Encarnita and I have been walking as much as we can in the ravine systems of Toronto. Today, for example, we walked from the Edward's Gardens at Lawrence and Leslie down to the Distillery District on Toronto's lake front following the Don River, a distance in the neighbourhood of 17 kilometres.
On May 2nd we leave Toronto and should be walking west from Burgos by the afternoon of May 4th. Our path will take us across the Spanish meseta to Leon, and from there into Galicia and finally to the cathedral city of Santiago de Compostela. Our goal is its beautiful baroque cathedral, about the fifth church structure to have been erected on that site over the tomb of Saint James.
I estimate we will arrive in Santiago on June 6th. After a day or two in the city, we hope to continue west for four days, walking of course, to Cabo Finisterre (Lands End), to watch the setting sun with a drink in hand, resting in the salon of the lighthouse that has been converted to a hotel.
Our goal, however, is always the cathedral in Santiago, and we will do our best to keep this blog active with photographs and comments from what will be a wonderful voyage.
John
