Saturday, May 22, 2004
Camino of Thoughts
I will on occasion post thoughts here about various matters relating to my personal interests. These include walking the Camino to Santiago de Compostela, architectural history, Spanish history, urban development, and higher education among other things.
This is a holy year in Santiago, for St. James Day falls on a Sunday, and though I am neither a Catholic nor religious, of late I have been thinking fondly about once again walking to Santiago. I have walked the route twice, in 1998 and in 2001, and found the experience to be a most wonderful one. Both my walks were not in years deemed holy years, and the Camino in Autumn was uncrowded (in a few days I shall post my logs for those walks). When July 25 falls on a Sunday and a holy year is declared, the main doors of the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela are opened, and many more pilgrims make the trek, or at least the last 100 kms of it than in a typical year. Already I have read reports about crowding at refugios (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Santiagobis/ ).
Anyway, I doubt that I shall have the chance to make the walk this year.
Meantime, in my free time I am reading lots of Spanish history, my current reading obsession. Yesterday I picked up a copy of a new book Stein, Stanley and Stein, Barbara H. 2003. Apogee of Empire: Spain and New Spain in the Age of Charles III, 1759-1789. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins. () At about 400 pages, it should occupy my reading hours for awhile. I shall post comments on the book as I read it.
This is a holy year in Santiago, for St. James Day falls on a Sunday, and though I am neither a Catholic nor religious, of late I have been thinking fondly about once again walking to Santiago. I have walked the route twice, in 1998 and in 2001, and found the experience to be a most wonderful one. Both my walks were not in years deemed holy years, and the Camino in Autumn was uncrowded (in a few days I shall post my logs for those walks). When July 25 falls on a Sunday and a holy year is declared, the main doors of the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela are opened, and many more pilgrims make the trek, or at least the last 100 kms of it than in a typical year. Already I have read reports about crowding at refugios (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Santiagobis/ ).
Anyway, I doubt that I shall have the chance to make the walk this year.
Meantime, in my free time I am reading lots of Spanish history, my current reading obsession. Yesterday I picked up a copy of a new book Stein, Stanley and Stein, Barbara H. 2003. Apogee of Empire: Spain and New Spain in the Age of Charles III, 1759-1789. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins. () At about 400 pages, it should occupy my reading hours for awhile. I shall post comments on the book as I read it.
