Camino podcaster Brendan Bolton asked recently: “When you hear the phrase ‘Post Camino Blues’ what is the first thing that comes to mind for you?” The way I see it, it’s kind of a late night Tapas bar staring into your vino tinto listening to a lone musician singing a …
I heard the music first, then turned a corner in the park and the explosion of tulips filled my eyes with Spring. It’s Floriade time in Canberra – with more than a million blooms, it is the Southern Hemisphere’s greatest flower festival that runs from 15 Sept to 14 October. …
Anyone who has walked the ancient pilgrimage route of the Camino de Santiago will have encountered a delicious almond cake with a characteristic cross of the Order of Santiago outlined in icing sugar. This is the Tarta de Santiago originating in the Spanish Autonomous Community of Galicia. I’ve included the …
There was a light drizzle as I turned down a fairly nondescript Georgian side street in Bath when I noticed a plain sign outside a terrace house about halfway down. The sign read: “William Herschel Museum”, accompanied by an old plaque indicated that this was his house back in the …
From Sarria onwards to Santiago de Compostela, I found myself reflecting on what I had learned on the Camino, and wondering how I can take what I’ve learned back into my daily life. How do you reintegrate back into the life you left behind? I know this is something countless …
We passed the Colosseum on the way to our hotel, and found it even more impressive than any images could convey. The following day, with the sun high in the sky, I made my way past the Forum and over to the Colosseum to see it properly in daylight. When …
What about the mind? You reach Logroño, and by now you are getting settled into the Camino’s routine, and you are starting to feel like a pilgrim on a pilgrimage. But what does that even mean, and how might we think about it? What makes this different from, say, a …
I first saw the ancient Roman Forum (Forum Romanum) from a Segway bike. I looked up from the cobblestones as our tour guide gathered us together, and there it was – the scene so often painted by Grand Tour visitors from the C17th and C18th. Stretching out beneath us, stood …
How do you conceive of walking 800km/500 miles when, like me, you typically take the car to the local shops less than a kilometre away? It’s a scary number, even more so when you look up at the Pyrenees, and see the vultures circling. Does that bell toll for me? …
