After months of preparation, once again, searching for the right equipment and the perfect clothing to cover all possible eventualities; we packed our backpacks, verified our travel arrangements, the weather and the Current status of welcome for American tourist in Spain.
As you may have read over the past several months, there has been some unrest in Spain, primarily focused on American tourist and the desires of some of the Spanish nationals for Americans to just stay home.
The Camino, however, is a little different than the rest of Spain. It’s never appeared to be highly political, and in fact there have been many posts on popular Camino websites, indicating that the hostels and innkeepers are trying to make it clear that Americans are welcome. To enjoy their pilgrimage.
Wednesday and Thursday we packed our backpacks, bought a couple of secondhand suitcases to put our full backpacks in so that we could include our tracking poles, etc., with our packed luggage.
We said, farewell to our families and friends and headed to the airport first thing Friday morning. Flew from Austin to Dallas with a short layover and then an overnight flight from Dulles to Madrid.
We said, farewell to our families and friends and headed to the airport first thing Friday morning. Flew from Austin to Dallas with a short layover and then an overnight flight from Dulles to Madrid.
From Madrid Airport we took a bus to the Atocha train station where we currently sit for five hours waiting on our train to take us to Pamplona where we will spend two nights before heading directly to St. Jean Pied de Port where we will spend three nights before taking our first steps on the Camino.
Looks like we’ll have nice weather for the first couple of days and we look forward to getting the Pyrenees behind us and enjoying the welcoming countryside and the warm and gracious folks that Camino such a warm and wonderful experience.
Buen Camino
