Sensible traveler Destinations Where they went Travel gear Student travelHiking into history
By Diane Daniel, Globe Correspondent, 07/28/02
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Sensible traveler Destinations Where they went Travel gear Student travel |
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Local legend has it that after the death of Jesus, the apostle James went to Spain. He was later beheaded and elevated to martyrdom, and some say his remains are in Santiago de Compostela. Since about 950 AD, believers have made the pilgrimage for penance, to give thanks, and to remember the dead.
After some investigating, Madsen, 60, decided that walking one-fifth of the trail would be an excellent way to combine her love of walking and hiking with sightseeing, history, architecture, and food.
A few years ago she had formed the Hiking Highs, a group of middle-aged men and women who hike together, and invited them to join her. "In January I hosted a party to give people a sense of the trip," Madsen said. Guests made Spanish dishes and wore costumes.
One of the early takers was Bernie Svedlow of Reading, who ran her first marathon this year at age 50. Another signer-up was Shelley Leahy of West Roxbury (a Boston Globe employee in classified advertising). All three have done the Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day, a 60-mile fund-raiser walk.
After the three went shopping for backpacks, "we got scared," said Madsen, a marketing consultant. "We said, `What are we going to do? We can't carry everything.' But then Shelley, the master researcher, found this group called Spanish Steps [www.spanishsteps.com] who does tours there."
By the time of the trip, the first two weeks of June, five more women had joined (men were invited, too), ranging in age from 50 to 62. They were Betty Athanasoulas of Cambridge; Janet Donnoe of Maynard; Judith Hurley of Dorchester; Pat Lovejoy of Watertown; and Eunice White of Brookline.
Spanish Steps provided a guide, lodging, some meals, and baggage transfer. The cost was about $1,150 for 10 days. Svedlow was the group's webmaster, posting updates at cyber cafes during the trip and a full report afterward (www.geocities.com/merunner1952).
The women started in the tiny village of Molinaseca and headed west toward Santiago, about 50 miles from the Atlantic coast. The walking was rigorous but not exhausting, Madsen said.
None of the women on her group were on a religious pilgrimage but instead were more interested in the local people and surroundings. They did, however, see many of the faithful, especially at the end of the trail, at the cathedral in Santiago, where Saint James's remains are said to be kept in a chest. "And it is a true pilgrimage in that you get these stamps and in the end you get a certificate," Madsen said.
Along the trail, people were walking, cycling, and traveling by horseback. There's now even an auto route.
For safety, Spain has made a big effort to make trails fairly near the roads, she said. They wind through small villages, over rolling hills, and through cow pastures. Yellow arrows mark the trail, and markers count down the kilometers to Santiago.
"It's very green, and the wildflowers were gorgeous," Madsen said, adding, "You could walk for a couple of hours and maybe pass one or two people." The group encountered many international tourists.
Though the number of visitors is rising, Madsen said, "I'm glad we went when we went. It wasn't too commercialized."
Backpackers often stay in dorms called refugios. The more upscale Spanish Steps arranged for overnights at inns and "casa rurales," or country houses, some hundred of years old and run like B & Bs.
For about $7 each, the women at night dined on salad, soup, meat or fish, bread, bottled water, wine, and coffee. Along the way they would stop at cafes for snacks and to use the restrooms, which were clean and which "all worked," Svedlow marveled.
"We were 21st-century pilgrims with 21st-century amenities," said Madsen.
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