Bray to go: The Scary One in Greystones with Bray Head in the background
A good brisk walk is, of course, for all ages and physicalities.
And it allows you the time and space to talk and reflect on shared experiences and your younger selves.
And so the seven-and-a-half miles, three-and-a-half hour trek, to the village of East Linton became a trip down Memory Lane.
We could just as well have been in our old stomping ground of Aberdeen where Wee Jon was known to spend a night on the grass island Mounthooly Roundabout.
Or London and Brighton where we variously enjoyed the bright lights of Leicester Square and Chinatown or hosted Spanish students down the pier.
And on this, World Kindness Day, a shout-out here to those who have shown me random acts of kindness on my travels… and sometimes me them.
And firstly a recommendation… if you ever leave your mobile phone back in your Mississippi hotel on my American Trilogy in the Deep South.
You only realise it when you’re 50 miles along the highway then here’s your go-to guy.
Hit the road Zach
Zach is back
Zach arranged to get a courier to bring it from Jackson to Cleveland and the Two Mississippi Museums.
The next year Zach sought me out at the American Travel Fair, IPW, in Denver when I left my mobile phone down as I went for a coffee and he tut-tutted. Legend!
Zuhair, a hero
Ramadan the Man….Zuhair
And a shout-out here to all who observe Ramadan which puts a Christian’s Lenten fast into sharp focus.
Zuhair, our G Adventures host on our trip to Jordan, was the ever-welcoming face for his country.
Despite not being able to let a drop of water or morsel to his lips despite the travel and 30+ temperatures and desert until early evening.
When even Petra camels could.
Rachel, a ray of sunshine
Sometimes when you travel the world for a living you forget how lucky you are.
And that’s when you need a star like Rachel to pick you up.
Often it’s wine and a prehistoric South African valley which will remind you that whatever’s happening at home can wait.
And which is why I’m delighted for her (and me in the future) that South Africa is opening up again for international travellers with a negative test.
Your honour, Onur
I’m going where Onur goes… in Istanbul
And I’ve reserved this place for my favourite Turk, Turkish Airlines’ Onur, and very nearly favourite person in our industry.
Which is why he, like me, is also a past recipient of Irish Travel Media’s Pleasure To Work With Award.
Now if there was an award too for Most Accidental Tourist I’d win that too… every year.
I’ve enjoyed Onur’s company on the little island of Kuramathi, too small even for me to get lost.
Though Istanbul is and when I did get waylaid somewhere around the Blue Mosque who cane to collect me?
And I’ll carry your cross
And Finisterre after the Camino
And sometimes I’ll be your hero on your travels.
Just as I was when I carried a tearful American’s backpack on her final steps of a stretch of the Camino with CaminoWays.
Only for her to have to remind me to give it back.
Denmark: And Mads Langer doesn’t let a small thing like lockdown make him down his mic.
Mads sold 500 tickets for a concert at Tangkrogen outside Aarhus, Denmark’s second city after Copenhagen.
The cars were rockin’ and rollin’!
Airport movies
Bringing some colour into our lives
Edinburgh Airport: And all of this drive-thrumania has been triggered by the news that my local airport Edinburgh is putting on a Halloween offering.
Drive-ins were always the stuff of James Dean movies (the first drive-in cinema was actually New Jersey, not LA).
You never forget your first time though and that for me was Toronto and a Bond movie, The Living Daylights. And while our first albums are usually embarrassing I’m happy with that choice.
Anyhoos back to Edinburgh. You’ll get Ghostbusters, Hocus Pocus, Coco, The Lost Boys, Jaws (not nearly as terrifying at Universal Studios Hollywood) and Halloween.
November brings us Back to the Future, Rocketman, Mamma Mia and more.
There’s entertainment galore, food and drink from local producers Cold Town Beer and Alandas plus DJ Captain Calverto will entertain you before each film with car discos. singalongs and quiz fun.
They’ve offered me (and I guess you too) the chance to win tickets.
And you might even see a plane flying overhead… and hopefully I’ll be on it.
It’s an Irish solution to an Irish problem as they like to say over there but even this one has never been tried before… shared leaders.
The Irish have taken four months to agree that they can’t agree but, and you have to get into the Irish way of thinking, that’s no bad thing.
So Micheál Martin will get the first two and a half years as Taoiseach while his predecessor Leo Varadkar wiil resume power for the last two and a half.
And talking about shared leaders just think of the fun and possibilities if Donald Trump split the next Presidency with Joe Biden www.washington.org and Easy DC.
This lockdown has reminded us all that we should appreciate our own country.
And Travel Department, who know all about the world, know too that Ireland is the best of the world.
Which is why they’re launching Homegrown, their domestic trips from September.
My first professional Travel trip was from Wales to Cork and Kerry on the now discontinued Swansea-Cork shipping route.
It was the poor young PR’s first trip and she wasn’t prepared for how rough it would be with half a dozen hacks.
And look at that landscape
Or how choppy the sea was as we all fell down with sea sickness.
The return journey was almost as bad with us being kept off shore for a couple of hours.
I learned two things… that without our holiday providers and hosts we are rudderless and that Co. Kerry is one of the most beautiful places on God’s Earth.
TD has a guided four-night Kingdom of Kerry walking trip and a seven-night guided seven-night Kingdom and Cork’s Rebel County itinerary.
I’ve often felt that we’d be better off if we put broadminded Travel people in charge of the world.
Rather than the leaders we have.
And I wholeheartedly support the US Travel Association’s response to the European Union further shutting its doors on Americans.
Tori Enerson Barnes: ‘This is unwelcome news and will have major negative implications for an economic recovery. – particularly if this ban results in cycles of retaliation as is so often the case.’
The Grapes, Sheffield: And another Son and Heir related hostelry.
And where his favourite band The Arctic Monkeys played their first gig in their home city.
And which we had to seek out on a return trip where we namedropped to try to get a free drink… the father-in-law, of course, who hails from Steel City.
“I will sing to the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live” (Psalm 104:33).
Psalm 104:3
But when will we be able to sing again in church?
I have long sung lustily and croakily and in the wrong place and always find that the service is less uplifting when the organist or the choir are off.
But that is what we’ll have to put up with when our churches reopen, initially for private prayer and funerals.
There is a gravitas to the singing as the botafumeiro swings from side to side in St James’s Cathedral during the Pilgrims’ Mass at the end of your Camino Ways walk http://www.caminoways.com.
But the real stirring stuff comes from the black gospel singers on the other side of the Atlantic.
And yes, I know we have them over here but they’re not in the same number.
I’d been chasing the choirs unsuccessfully on my travels and was disappointed to have to miss the Southern choir in Jackson, Mississippi https://www.deep-south-usa.com and The Promised Land because our flights back through Texas clashed with the choir.
Our forebears in the Middle Ages believed that Finisterre at the outpost of Galicia in north-west Spain was the end of the world.
And they would carry their penitential pilgrimage, the 87kms to Santiago de Compostella on to Finisterre.
Well, if this is the end of the world I’m jumping right off. Gladly!
Here’s your ‘cut-out and keep’ guide to everything you want to know about Finisterre and the Camino…
I need a rest… after that coach ride!
Piper at the gates of heaven
Santiago to Finisterre, 87kms: What else would you expect at the Edge of the World? A Galician piper belts out a Celtic tune by the lighthouse at Finisterre, the westernmost post of their world.
A sign with the Camino shell, marks 0,00kms.
Many pilgrims continue on by foot from Santiago to Finisterre.
Wendy, my fellow peregrinos, take a three-hour coach ride from Santiago (€26 return) on our last day, Wednesday.
Any trip to the Edge of the World should not be rushed, there is much to see, from quiet coves to golden beaches and coastal villages.
With azure and terracotta-washed cottages.
As I look out on the horizon from atop the cliff on the clearest of clear days I can see why my Celtic predecessors refused to countenance that there could be anything beyond or above this.
Wear light clothes
The legend of the Camino
Santiago de Compostella, or ‘St James of the Field of Stars’, the name derives from the belief that the bones of St James the Greater were taken here from the Middle East to Spain.
Where he is reported to have preached earlier in his mission.
In 814AD Bishop Theodoric of Aria Flavia, is said to have been guided there by a shepherd who had been led to the bones by a star.
A church was built over the bones and later replaced with the Catedral de Santiago.
Pilgrims have been walking the Camino, originally from their own homes as a starting point. ever since, as a penance and to gain indulgence.
The Scallop Shell
When St James’s disciples were shipping his body to the Iberian Peninsula a storm is said to have hit the boat and his body was thought lost to the sea.
However, it washed ashore undamaged, coated by scallop shells.
Pilgrims display their shells for identification and are rewarded still with charity from locals.
Medieval pilgrims would also use them to scoop up drinking water: pilgrims take them home as keepsakes.
When to go
April-June, September-October: Galicia is at its most colourful with spring and autumn hues and the temperature is warm without being baking (late teens to early 20sC).
Winter is quieter and temperatures can dip to the early double figures.
Galicia is so verdant because of the rain so be prepared.
A hat and a rucksack… and you’re ready to go
What to bring
Walking boots and socks, picking trousers (convertible with zip to make them shorts).
No jeans, they’re restrictive and will weigh you down in the rain and mark you out as a newbie.
Shirts (long-sleeved and t-shirts).
Walking stick (depending on agility and age).
Light rain jacket and polar fleece.
Sun hat, sunglasses, sun cream.
Water bottle, first aid (Paracetamol, competed blister plasters and anti-inflammatory cream).
How to prepare
Caminoways.com hold training walks throughout the year for different levels of walker.
Alternatively avail of the many walkways around the country which can be similar to the Galician terrain.
And do your basic stretching exercises before and after walks.
Some Halloween spirit
Where to eat/drink
Breakfasts in designated Caminoways.com hotels are buffet style. The large range of fruit is healthy and refreshing, bacon and sausages are thinner than Irish tastes while scrambled eggs are constantly light, fresh and tasty.
Cafe/bars on the Camino are well priced, a range of filled baguettes are around a fiver.
And wine and lager range from around @1-1.50 and while the costs increase the nearer to Santiago you get they are not prohibitive.
Hamlets and towns are well served for eating places.
And if you do stumble across a Queimada (a Galician ritual involving stirring a brew in a fiery cauldron) as I did at the Mandala restaurant in Rua Cima Do Lugar, Arzua then that’s a bonus.
I had their equivalent of an early bird of skag bol and wine which filled the plate, all for €6.
I always seize on calamari where I find it, but it’s pulp (octopus) which is Galicia’s speciality.
Sit on a stool and eat with fingers, mopping up the tomato sauce from the bowl with bread and swirling it down with a large red (at La Puerta, Santiago, €6.50).
Santiago is noted for Padron peppers, usually green where the random one is very hot…. Galician Roulette. I chickened out.
Where to stay
Alfonso IX, Rua Do Peregrino 29, 27600, Sarria (close to the river) Good starting point, good hotel sundries.
Pousada de Portomarin, 27170, Avda de Sarria, Portomarin. A welcome archway after the first day. A cosy stay, and ah, a bidet!
Complejo la Cabana C/Dr Pardo Ouro, 27200.
Palasd de Rei: A bit of a hike up town so a walk to restaurants if you choose not to eat at the hotel. There was a wedding on when I tased which was good of them to arrange for our evening entertainment.
Teodora, Avda de Lugo, 38 Arzua: Centrally located, comfortable and friendly.
Amenal 12, O Pino: One-horse hamlet but that’s OK after a 30km trek, and the stew is filling.
Santiago: HOtel Geimirez, Horreo 92, 15702: Ideally located close to the historic old town. A welcome and deserved bottomless tube at the end of your Camino.
Walk this way
The different ways
The French Way: Saint Jean to Santiago, 770km. Las leg: Sarria to Santiago, 116kms.
Caminoway organise guided and self-guided tours on the many routes across Spain, Portugal and France.
Prices start at €560pp sharing for a six-night Camino trip, walking the Camino Frances from Sarria to Santiago, including half-board, luggage transfers from hotel to hole and holiday pack with pilgrim passport and route information.
Airport transfers, hotel upgrades and bike rental are also available.
This year is a Holy Year for Pilgrims as declared by the Pope The Holy Door of the Cathedral will be open for the Year of Mercy.
And, of course everyone’s Camino is their Camino… This was mine A pilgrim’s prayer.
You’ll see them, clad in their green cassocks enjoying the craic, with St Paddy’s vital accessories, his crook or crozier staff… and a pint of Guinness.
It’s the St Paddy’s Day procession only, in fairness, there is very little proceeding… unless it’s to the next pub.
St Paddy’s staff, or crook with cross on top, is a symbol of his high status but probably not the best walking aid.
It’ll turn your beer green
I’ll get onto walks around Ireland with IrelandWays www.IrelandWays.com but first a walk around the houses.
My Dear Old Dad, a doctor, and perhaps a sainted figure himself by now would always advise people use walking sticks.
And Finisterre after the Camino
Bringing some colour into our lives
Follow peaceful paths through ancient forests and open mountain trails to Glenmalure, Ireland’s longest glacier valley… and finish in Dublin. 