The Genesis

The idea for this adventure had its genesis when Ed, one of the Gilroy Amigos,  saw "The Way," a movie that  takes place along the Camino de Santiago. He told us how much he liked the movie and that it would be wonderful if we decided to do the walk as a group. This was over a year ago. It didn't take the rest of us long to see the movie on our own and come to the same conclusion. It looks doable, folks have been doing it for over a millennium, we all have the time, and we are all in relatively good shape (give or take a few pounds.)

I've been walking with a group of friends for over five years now and for the last three years we've been walking everyday from Monday to Saturday for at least an hour. So, the idea of doing the Camino was not totally out of the ordinary although it was a stretch. One may argue that there is a big difference between walking four miles everyday and walking an average of fifteen miles per day during nineteen consecutive days (actually 20 days; we're planning to take a day off.)

Since we first agreed to go on this adventure we've been refining exactly what we wanted to commit to. There are many caminos all over Europe that pilgrims can take to get to Santiago de Compostela. We settled on taking the Camimo Frances which, besides being the original and the one featured in the movie, starts in France just north of the border with Spain

The entire Camino Frances (the French way) comprises 31 stages and is about 500 miles long. While a couple of guys wanted to walk the entire camino, we finally agreed on starting in Burgos. Burgos is the historical capital of the Castille region of Spain and places us 300 miles away from Santiago by foot.

Let's walk...

Burgos Cathedral