You know how you think about the camino, and read and watch and listen to anything camino, and ponder and prepare and start getting the gear together, and then you book your tickets?
Yeah, that’s exactly not what we did. When I came back from my (until covid) usual walk in September, I started planning the next walk immediately. Looking at ways to get me and my Scouse Spouse to and from Spain to celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary in the new year, I came upon something as rare as hen’s teeth: Cheap tickets from Santiago to Dublin!
Our preferred way of getting home from Santiago is to fly to Dublin and then to Liverpool. All the other legs of the journey are already cheap apart from the flight to Dublin … So I booked it. Even if it was in early March.
Even though I was now the proud owner of a partial return from Spain, with a fixed date, I still had no idea when or how we would get there or what we would do when we did.
We could repeat our honeymoon walk …
… or something completely different …
… maybe take him to the Inglés for some seaside views …
… or just go for that long tapas heavy weekend to Burgos …
… or perhaps take a leisurely stroll out to Finisterra? In fact, we could start and stop anywhere and get a bus or train to Santiago to catch our return flight. I was very pleased with the many options and opportunities, and with the knowledge I was definitely going!
As the months ticked by we decided on Astorga to Santiago, to revisit our honeymoon walk. So I booked the rest of the tickets and started looking at accommodation, and I am glad I did! A lot of places don’t open until Easter, but I know the stages by now and made sure we had a room every evening in our favourite towns and villages, and a day off in Santiago.
We’ve both got the kit already, just had to make sure it would cover colder evening temps as well as warm days, and bring all the raingear, including gaiters for the mud. On our honeymoon camino, which was also in March, we had wall-to-wall sunshine, and on our return to Galicia in March two years later, we had sleet and snow and icy winds.
We packed as little as we could while still covering all bases, and then waited impatiently for February to come around so we could finally go.
Somewhere Slowly 