Home

I left Logronos and flew to Madrid.  I can't walk much even though I have been off of my feet for a week.  I buy a couple of fridge magnets at the airport and then sit to wait for my next flight.  I fly out of Madrid and get to London.  I'm in terminal 5 and I'm uncomfortable in what I'm wearing so I buy a long summer dress so it's more like wearing pajamas on the plane.  The next flight will be 9 hours and I need comfort at this point.  The flight from London home was the worst.  My back was so bad and I had packed the robaxacet in my back pack and not in my purse.  That was silly.  I can't sleep on the plane because my back and feet hurt so much.  I can't get comfortable at all.  I order wine and pray that it relieves some of the pain.  It doesn't really but it makes the flight a little more bearable.  I finally arrive home to a friendly face.  Thank you for picking me up.  I'm so grateful to be back.     Right now I am going to have to say, there will be no more adventures or trips for a long while.  I'm just so happy to be home!!!

Thank you for following my journey!!!!!

Estella to Los Arcos

On my way to Los Arcos and I get a bit lost trying to find the path of the Camino but I ask someone and they point out the way.  No one speaks English so I'm trying to understand Spanish and for the most part I am.  If you just say Camino, any one can point you in the right direction which is very good.  I find myself walking through forests today all by myself.  I get a weird feeling and think to myself that if something were to happen to me here, there would be no one to find me.  Pretty creepy feeling.  I'm told later that I took the hard path of the Camino, of course that is the story of my life. I wondered why I hadn't passed any one today but apparently there was a much easier path and everyone else found that one.  I was right about the fact that I was completely alone on the path I had taken and that creepy feeling was justified.  I phone my sister Laurie and cry.  She doesn't answer.  I just need a friendly voice.  I get to a town where there should have been food but no, everything is closed.  I am really hating this.  Being this hungry and cold and exhausted and in pain is just too much for me.  I just want to go home.  I need to go home.  I arrive in Los Arcos.  I find a place for tea and a pizza.  At least I'm not as hungry but damn it's so cold here.  I'm told there is an airport in Logrono.  I catch a taxi and head to Logrono.  I get into a pensione for the night.  It's a dump but it's a bed.  I need to see a doctor about my feet.  This stabbing pain that goes from the bottoms of my feet into my legs is terrible.  The one toe has a blister that has come up under my toe nail is really bad.  The other blisters are bad too but that one is a killer.  I ask where to find a doctor. I go to a farmacie and they are able to help.  My toe is really bad and I'm told to keep it bandaged and stay off of my feet for at least three days.  I need to find out about flights.  I want to go home.  I have no one to support me here.  I'm so emotionally drained, not to mention physically.  I need to recuperate and ho home.  I feel like I'm failing everyone but I've spoken to my sister and she agrees that I should come home.  I've texted with my daughter Shelby and she wants me home for my fiftieth birthday.  If Shelby and her husband Erik ever do the Camino, I have the option of picking up in Los Arcos again and having someone to do it with. Right now, I've had enough and I don't think I ever need to do something that is this hard on my body again.  I wish I could say it was a fun vacation but I can't.  I just want my feet not to hurt any more and the pain in my back to get better.  I want to sleep in my own bed and I want to see my dogs.  I miss the comforts of home like being able to eat when I want.  If any one wants to really understand what each day was like on the Camino, you need to walk up and down the grouse grind for six or seven hours a day carrying 20 pounds on your back and do that every day until you are up to two hundred kilometers.  See how you feel after that and let me know if and when you are ready to quit.  There was no way I could keep going with the pain I am in and this was my journey to find out about myself.  I learned a lot.  I'm more than I every thought I was.  I'm braver just because I tried and I'm stronger because of how far I actually went. I'm not going to think worse of myself because I am coming home.  I'm going to think more of myself because I did more than I ever thought I could.  I'm happy with that.  This won't be my last adventure but it will be the last time I take off on an adventure alone.  I love ME for the fact that I tried. 

Puente la Reina to Estella

As I put my shoes on over my blistered feet, I realize how hard it is going to be today.  Each step is painful and I keep telling myself that it will get easier.  The town of Puente la Reina is very quaint.  I love the narrow streets with the peoples washing hanging outside their windows and the little shops all along the streets.  I've come to my first hill and already I'm feeling the pain in my feet and my neck and back.  I'm trying to shake it off but it is just getting worse.  It's only 19 km to go.  I just have to get there.  I didn't realize how cold it was going to be here at this time of year and the rain is driving me crazy.  Not only am I cold, but I'm sweating and if I stop, it just makes me even colder, and if I stop and start, it hurts my feet even more.  I want to just sit down, take off the back pack and my shoes and never put them on again.  I never guessed this would be so grueling and I think the lack of sleep is taking it's toll of me.  The being cold all the time doesn't help and neither is the fact that I'm hungry.  I have never felt like this in my life.  This is taking a toll on my me and my health.  I'm a wreck.  It starts to down pour and then hail the size of golf balls about an hour outside Estella.  I'm so fricken cold.  I just want to get into a place with a bed and warm up.  I get a place to stay and I crawl into bed for a bit.  I just need warmth.  I also need food.  It's hard here because everything is closed from 2-5.  You can get wine but no food.  At five, when things open again, you can get some tapas but no meals until seven.  I just want to eat before it's too late and I want to go to bed.  I can't warm up and it's crazy.  I can't walk far to find food.  I can't keep my eyes open and I just need sleep.  I find myself in a fairly big square not far from where I am staying I find a store that's open and I buy a jacket and talk to Marny.  Thank God.  I needed a friendly voice at this point.  I find a restaurant after buying a jacket and ask about food.  I get wine and a mushroom tapas and a tuna tapas.  At six thirty the waiter comes over to tell me that the cook has shown up early and will make me some dinner.  I order seafood paella and another glass of wine.  I'm full and really tired.  I head back to my room.  I'm exhausted and I finally sleep for about four hours.  That's probably the longest I have slept since Paris.  I get up in the morning and have a meltdown as I try to put my shoes on.  I'm an absolute wreck.  I'm heading to Los Arcos today.  Only 21 km of pain and agony.  I can't do this, I need to go home.  My body is so wracked with pain that it brings tears to my eyes.  I manage to find a place for a cup of tea and a croissant.  It was a good thing that I found a place to at least get that because the town I expected to stop in for lunch was completely closed up so 21 km on nothing more than a croissant.  Probably not the best idea but not much I could do about that.  Maybe Los Arcos will be better. 

Pamplona to Puente la Reina

It's cloudy as I leave Pamplona and very cold.  It doesn't take me very long before I meet up with Jan.  She is from Florida and we walk and talk for about half an hour.  Very interesting person.  She tells me that everyone finds some kind of romance on the Camino and told me about her plane ride over here.  I just smiled.  Jan has to stop so I continue on.  It starts to rain a bit and I'm happy for the coolness on my face as I am part way up the first hill.  I get into a little town and I have to get my rain jacket out.  Now for the next hill.  The rain has made huge mud puddles and not just any kind of mud but Gumbo as my mom would say.  It's the kind of mud that almost sucks the shoes right off of my feel and its slippery and you end up with so much on you shoes that you feel like you feet weigh an extra 20 pounds.  You can only scrape this kind of mud off.  Yuck.  I finally reach the top of the hill and its a huge long line of wind turbines all across the top of the mountain.  Very windy and noisy but beautiful just the same.  The downhill slope is not muddy, thank goodness, just rocky and steep.  I get to another town and find a little place to get a piece of chocolate torte and a glass of wine.  It's so cold out right now and the wine warms me from the inside.  I talk to a few people and met a man on crutches who is still walking the Camino.  There is also an old man walking here with his donkey.  The funny things you see along this path.  I reach Puente la Reina and find a bed.  I shower to try to warm up and grab a sandwich and a glass of wine in the restaurant.  I meet some other people and I end up having dinner with them.  For the first time on this journey, I have had a nourishing dinner and I am actually full.  I am just shocked at how emotional I am right now .  I head to bed.  I cry for a bit and fall asleep.  I get up and shower, find some breakfast and I have time to write for a bit before leaving for Estella.  It's a beautiful morning out there but cold.

Extra day in Pamplona

The undergarments are washed and outside on the balcony in the sun to dry.  The rest of the washing was sent out and will come back tonight.  I feel like me again.  Now if I could just find some hair conditioner I would be set.  The one thing I want to do when I finish this walk is get a pedicure and lay by a pool in the sunshine.  The pedicure will be most important.  Just to not have to pull my hair back and to wear makeup again will be so good.  It really is the little things in life that I'm thank ful for.
I wander around outside and find a market to buy some bread and cheese and wine and yogurt.  I find a store that sells hair conditioner.  I'm so excited.  I come back to the hotel and sit in th sunshine and have a picnic lunch.
I never realized how emotional this walk would make me and now I'm thinking that if anyone asked, I would recommend bringing a friend with you.  Someone who knows how grueling this is and who understands how exhausted you are every day and how you can't sleep at night which makes you feel even worse the next day.  Some days are six to seven hours of walking and lots and lots of hills.  I can write about it, and email about it and talk on the phone about it but until the person you are telling is actually here doing this, they will never really understand.  No matter how tired I am, I still get up every day and put on my socks and shoes over my blisters and keep going.  I honestly don't know if I can finish this but I know in my heart, right now that I have to keep going.  This adventure will and has brought up every time I've never felt good enough and every time someone has told me that I'm not good enough.  I expected to exorcise some demons while I was here but I never expected all of the buried feelings to rise to the surface all at once.  I want to be strong, I want to know I can do this, I want to be good enough.  I want to feel amazing.  Every step brings new emotions forward and being here and being completely and utterly alone doesn't help with all of the emotions.  If I decide to quit tomorrow and come home, it will not be because I am letting anyone down or myself.  I have nothing to prove but I have to know in my heart if that's the right decision for me.  I'm so glad for this time to chase these ghosts out of my life for good. 

Zubiri to Pamplona

Before I leave Zubiri, I am standing in the shower praying.  When I get to Pamplona, I want to find a room with a private bath and a hairdryer.  Also for a wifi connection that works.  I need to feel some sort of normality.  I think because I have been so exhausted that If I can just do my hair and my makeup I will feel like me again.  I find a place for breakfast and I enjoy yet another sandwich and tea.  It´s not much but at least I have something.  My water bottle is filled and I leave Zubiri behind.  It´s a beautiful sunny day and it doesn´t take me long before I have to stop and remove my jacket.  I take a deep breath and enjoy the warmth on my skin.  My back pack seems heavier to me today and my whole body seems out of whack.  I trip over rocks and I just feel clumsy.  I must be getting hungry.  I find a great little outdoor cafe where they are serving warm frittatas and tea.  I sit in the sunshine, thankful that I can take my back pack off for a little while.  It isn´t long and I have a lady from Abbotsford sitting next to me and a gentleman named Sean who is 81 and from England.  This is his third time doing the Camino and let me tell you he was a very interesting person to talk to.  He doesn´t look a day over 65.  I finish my lunch and I´m off again.  Everything smells like lilacs and orange blossoms except when you pass a farm.  I walked a long way along a river, so I got some cool breezes which I was thankful for,especially on the hills.  I finally reach Pamplona and I walk down the streets where they do the running of the bulls.  It´s very exciting to be here.  I think I find it especially cool because I never thought I would be here.  I´m very grateful.  It´s after three and I find a hotel with everything that I have prayed for.  I´m going to stay and take a day off tomorrow.  If you saw the size of the blisters on my feet today you would understand why I need to take a day off.  It´s very lonely being here by myself but it´s so nice to pass the same people day after day and they remember you.  I manage to take my sore body and jump in the shower and I feel somewhat better and now it´s time for a glass of wine.  I don´t eat which is stupid and about ten oclock I finally order in some room service and a bottle of wine.  I can hardly pick up the fork to eat I am that tired.  I don´t even finish one glass of wine.  Now that´s gotta tell you how tired I really am.  LOL  I did sleep off and on for most of the night.  I think I slept more than any other night I´ve been walking.  One phone call from you and I´m feeling much perkier than I have.  Feeling less home sick now. 

Burgette to Zubiri

I´ve showered and had my passport stamped and I am on my way.  I meet a girl from Quebec along the road who tells me that the turn off for the Camino was back by the bank and we have missed it.  We head back together and talk for a while.  I´m glad for the company.  She has a sore leg and will be slow so she tells me that she will see me along the way and off I go.  I get to the next town and I sit down for some toast and a cup of tea.  I find the trail again and walk on.  Its raining today and very cold. I can´t seem to warm up.  I know that it will pass very quickly when I get to the next hill.  Today is a lot easier than yesterday that´s for sure.  I walk until I get hungry and I find a little eatery where others who are walking the camino are sitting.  No one talks to me and I really don´t think I´m up to talking.  I have a baguette and cheese and a glass of wine.  There are four or five ferrel cats running around looking for bits of food and I finally take pity on one of them and give him a bit of my cheese.  As the other cats come running up to get some, the one that I have fed has now made it known that he is the only one getting my cheese.  Too funny.  I watch the cats for a while and I am really enjoying my wine but I must get going.  Every step brings me closer to my goal and closer to coming home.  I´m homesick by this point and I´ve thought about just coming home.  I must keep walking.  I stopped to talk to two couples from Oregon.  I´ve passed them before so they were curious about where I was from.  I´m in great shape apparently.  I think that´s cause I walk fast and I´m constantly passing people.  The couples I met were hoping to meet me in Zubiri but that won´t happen. Once I can secure a room, I will find something to eat and hopefully some wine and I will stay in my room.  I´m just exhausted by the end of the day and I just want to lie down.  I know I should get out and see things but I´m just tired.  Hopefully this will get easier and I will see more and more.  I liked my room in Zubiri but it was really close to the church who´s bells toll every hour on the hour all night long.  I don´t get much sleep.  Today should be fairly level with not too many hills.  I´m hoping for not too many hills. 

St. Jean to Ronscevalles and on to Burgette

I have a wonderful breakfast this morning.  I even ate cereal with milk.  I never have milk ever but my son Thomas warned me to eat properly so that I have the energy to do this.  Just to let you know, I´m listening to you my little Buddy.  A gentleman across from me goes outside and comes back in to let me know that it´s cold out there this morning.  He is riding a bike along the Camino and hopes to get to Pamplona today.  I won´t be there for three days.  I wish him Buon Camino and he does the same for me.  I head up to my room to grab my backpack and head out.  Wish me luck!!!  The walk was 18 km straight up to 1400 meters.  It was long and tedious and I got to about the 17 km mark and I had to sit down in the grass and cry.  I thought I would be able to find a place to eat along the way and I didn´t and I am running out of water.  I´m cold and hungry and I have no energy to keep going and I´ve seen the next hill and I´m drained.  Somehow I manage to get my butt up and start moving again.  The down slope is just as hard as the up hill.  But I have done it and I get to Ronscevalles only to find there are no more rooms so now after walking for 25 km. I have to walk an extra three into the next town to find a room.  I stop for a glass of wine and pasta.  I have a meltdown on the phone with you but as always you make me feel better.  I end up in Burgette and find a room.  It´s three oclock in the afternoon and Í don´t get out of bed until seven the next morning.  I´m so drained, emotionally and physically.  I did see some beautiful things along the way, it wasn´t all bad.  The scenery that far up the mountain was incredible and breathtaking.  Because I was so high up I was surrounded by snow.  I didn´t bring clothes for snow.  There were all of these beautiful wildflowers growing all around in the fields and the stones I had to step on the way up were a gorgeous blue colour.   Near the top of the mountain I pass cows and horses grazing.  They are all wearing cowbells.  Yes the horses were too.  I take a picture of a horse and I swear he´s posing for me.  I start to walk away and he comes up to me and makes me scratch his ears.  I guess he wanted payment for his pose.  I am always so lucky with animals.  I am very blessed. 

Bordeaux to St. Jean

I´ve woken to sunshine this morning.  Yeah!!!  I didn´t sleep very much last night. Thinking about amazing conversations on the phone.  Today I need to get the train to St. Jean.  I didn´t realize it but it´s another four hours from here.  Here´s to trains and hoping for a seat this time.  I´m so thank ful for the warmth of the sunshine.  I get my ticket and decide to head to cafe across the street for some lunch and some wine.  Finally, some wine.  I sit outside in the sunshine and eat and watch people go by.  The birds are sharing my baguette with me.  Very cute.  The wine and lunch and sunshine has renewed me.  Now to get my train and get to St. Jean.  Tomorrow I start walking.  It will be nice to not have to rely on anything but my wits and my feet.  Tomorrow anything is possible.  I feel like the possibilities in my life are immense at this point.  After the train ride to Bayonne, I had to I thought switch trains, but it turns out that it is a bus that takes you right into St. Jean.  I just sleep for a bit and we are there.  The bus is loaded with people from all around the world who are doing the Camino.  I won´t be alone on this journey or at least that´s how I feel right now.  I find my hotel and I have a really cute little room and I drop my bags and head out to the Camino passport office.  I wait in line for about half an hour and finally get in to get my passport stamped.  I start my journey tomorrow.  I return to my hotel and get a glass of wine and just relax.  As I´m having my glass of wine, two elderly French ladies come in for tea. I could tell they were talking about me so I just smiled and said Bonjour and they smiled back and tipped their heads to me.  It was very sweet.  I run across the street to grab a pizza to have in my room.  We talk on the phone for about an hour.  I always feel much better after our conversations.  Thank you.  It´s time to get to bed as tomorrow I will need my energy to walk. 

Paris to Bordeaux

I head out this morning after saying goodbye to the hotel staff who have been magnificent with me.  The one day that I couldn´t get out of bed, and missed breakfast, they were good enough to check in on me and bring me breakfast in bed and tea.  They were amazing. So now I get my taxi and it takes me to the train station where the birds are flying everywhere looking for little morsels that people have dropped.  I get a tea and a croissant and I wander around until my train is ready to board.  I´m finally on the train and I think I have seat.  I´m saying good bye to Paris but I will be back again some day but I hope I don´t come back alone again.  My seat on the train is very short lived. I paid for a first class ticket but I don´t have a seat.  I find a conductor and he tells me I´m displaced.  I tell him that that´s the story of my life lately.  LOL.  I end up on the floor of the dining car for over an hour until the same conductor comes by and takes my hand and finds me a seat.  He hopes I will not be displaced any more.   I am seeing the countryside of France speed passed and it´s beautiful. There are so many fields that are in blooms of yellow and little hamlets that I pass that are so Provencal.  I just realize how lucky I truly am to be here at this time in my life. I get off the train, turn the data on for my phone, go to google maps to look up my hotel and it directs me right here.  I´m getting smart in my old age.  Insert smile here!!!!!!!  I got to the hotel to find that it´s in a yucky location and the room is awful but that´s what happens when you book on the internet, you never know what you are going to end up with.  I´m tired and hungry and everything here is closed so I have to trudge back to the main road to find something to eat.  Only in Bordeaux (wine country) would I be sitting in an irish pub drinking beer and eating fish and chips.  Truly an adventure for me.  After lunch I´ve come back to my room and barricaded myself in and slept for a few hours.  I´m still coughing and it´s driving me crazy.  Another wonderful phone call and I´m truly happy. 

Here I am in Paris and I've never been more tired in my life.  I think it was trying to get everything done in the last week at home when I was sick.  I have managed to get out and about and I saw the Louvre yesterday and the Eifel Tower.  I wandered around for hours and was so lost trying to get back to my hotel that I finally sucked it up and turned on my roaming data, opened google maps and followed it back.  The people who work at the hotel Prince Albert are so kind to me.  They saw how tired I was last night and offered me a beer and some conversation before heading back to my room.  It was just what I needed and perked up quickly after that long juant.  My room here is very tiny but just what I need and nothing more.  It's very quiet and allowed me to sleep in until 11:30 this morning.  As I've said, I'm very tired now that I'm here.  My cough is getting better finally though. 
As I wandered around Paris last night, I realized that it really is the city for lovers and families and everyone else who is not here all by themselves.  Paris really has no appeal to me and I can't wait until tomorrow so I can catch the train to Bordeaux.  I'm looking forward to sampling some different wines and foods.  I can't seem to get any one to help me here in Paris, and that's whether it's for food or anything else.  There are long line ups to get into eateries at night and last night I went into a little deli and the gentleman behind the counter wouldn't even look at me let alone take my order so I left and found a little corner store to buy a sandwich and some fruit and water at.  I am really hoping my experiences change for the better otherwise I am going to see nothing and sleep more.  I really wanted my first blog while I am away to be more positive but I know it will get better.  I will go back to my room and sleep a little while longer before I leave to find some food and check out some more sites. 

I am leaving in two days and I'm excited and anxious and apprehensive and every other emotion I can think of.  I have so much to do and I am taking the day off instead so I can get rid of this cough and cold.  It makes me anxious knowing that I won't get everything done but my health has to come first.  I'm trying very hard to see all the people I need to see before I go and the phone calls from well wishers is overwhelming.  Thank you to everyone who has wished me a safe trip.  I feel truly blessed that I have such amazing people who love me in my life.  Tonight I am getting together with girlfriends and hopefully my daughter Shelby and her husband will show up at the John B Pub in Coquitlam.  I'm looking forward to just relaxing and having a drink and not having to drive.  Tomorrow is lunch out with my mom and dad and my sister Laurie.  We will head to their local pub to see our favorite server in the whole wide world, Julie.  Sunday will be final clean up and I should leave for the airport at four.  I will have some last minute things to go into my bag but it is mostly ready. I have some gift cards to buy and dog food to get and money to take out but I can do that tomorrow.  I keep putting these things off and my days are getting fewer but the stress of not having it done will make me actually do it.  I hope!!!!  I know I will feel better once I am on the plane and in the air.  There won't be any turning back then!!  I just have to keep telling myself that I will be fine and if I'm not, I need to stop and drink the wine and eat the great food and just enjoy myself.  This is not a race, it was to put myself first and to try to figure out my life from this point forward.  So many changes in my life and so many possibilities.  It's time to just enjoy and be grateful for everything that I have in my life at this moment.  I can't change what's happened in my life but I can be thankful that it has changed for the better.  It's taken me a long time to see that it is better but it really is.  That kind of sounds like I'm trying to convince myself.  Oh well, maybe this journey I am taking will prove to me that I am exactly where I need to be for me!!   My next post will be from Paris!!!  

Slowly, I'm getting ready for my trip which I leave for in 52 days.  I've got my back pack and band aids and foot care products and I finally bought a sleeping bag last weekend.  I've got my travel insurance and my travel plan for my phone.  I still have to get to the bank and order my Euro's.  I've been walking as much as I can and I'm sore and tired and some days I'm not even sure that I'm going to be able to do this, but then I think, Hell, I can do anything.  Look how far I've come in the last year.  It was just over a year ago that I was in Hong Kong, Bali and Australia.  I never thought I would get to those places but there I was.  I had the time of my life.  This trip will have different qualities to that trip, mainly because I will do this walk alone.  It will be my time to figure out life and what I will do with the rest of my life.  I have many ideas but nothing written in stone yet. 

I would love to live in Italy, I would love to have a little garden and grow tomatoes so that I can make my own sun dried tomatoes.  I would love to live in a little house in Tuscany and be able to live with out a vehicle and walk to town to buy my ingredients for the days meal.  The only problem with that whole dream is that my children are here in Vancouver. 
I'm hoping that walking all those kilometers will give me a different perspective on the world and where I belong.  I'm  looking forward to every town I get to see and every person I get to meet and every meal I get to eat while walking the Camino.  I'm also looking forward to drinking some beautiful red wines in both France and Spain.  I'm looking forward to my whole day at the Louvre, and a couple of days wandering through Paris. I'm looking forward to everything except the sore feet. 

Lately I have had a few people ask me if I have any reservations about walking the Camino by myself and I've answered very honestly that, no I haven't.  Now that this thought has been put in my head I am starting to rethink this idea.  Is this a good idea to walk alone for 900 KM?  I'm sure I will meet up with people along the way.  For me, I think that whatever happens, will happen and I can't worry about stuff like that.  I can't control anything so why try.   I don't really want to go with any one else because then if I want to walk further one day than they do or if they get sick or have blisters and cannot walk, then I will feel obligated to wait for them.  I think it will be much better to just walk alone and only have to worry about me.  Here's the thing, If I am still to answer honestly, I would say that I am really looking forward to walking alone, walking and having to wonder where in the world I will end up next.  If I sit and question everything, I will be too afraid to do this or to just live life.  Isn't it better to embark on a journey and not know where it is going to take you than to be afraid to never go at all?  It's time to live and that's what I intend to do!!!!!

Planning my walk along the Camino

 


In just three months I will be leaving for my trip to walk the Camino De Santiago.  I have been working on the dates and how far I will have to walk each day.  Yesterday, I walked 19 km just trying to train in order to walk the 20 - 30 km a day that I will have to walk.  The Camino, or The Way of St. James, is a Pilgrimage and it starts in St. Jean Pied de Port in France and you walk the 800 Km to Santiago de Compostela Spain.  I am flying into Paris and I will have three nights there.  I am going to spend one full day at the Louvre.  There was no way I was going all the way to Paris and not seeing the Louvre.  I will go from Paris and spend a night in Bordeaux France.  Hopefully I will get to sample some of the wines. From Bordeaux, I take the train to St. Jean Pied de Port and I start my walk.  The first day out you walk over the Pyrenees mountains and into Spain.  I am hoping to walk three days and take a day off.  I begin the trip on May 5th and I should end up in Santiago de Compostela on June 21st which is my 50th Birthday.  So far, this is the schedule that I have come up with.

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May 5th 2013	Leave for Paris on British Airways	8:40 P.M.	Happy Birthday Mike
may 6th 2013	Arrive in Paris staying at Hotel Prince Albert Louvre	5:10 P.M.
May7th 2013	Day of Shopping and Looking around
May 8th 2013	Day at the Louvre
May 9th 2013	Take train to Bordeaux.  Stay at City Residence
May 10th 2013	Take Train to St. Jean Pied De Port.  Stay at Itzalpea hotel
May11th 2013	walk from St. Jean to Roncevalles	25.1 KM
May12th 2013	Roncevalles to Larrasoana	27.4 KM
May 13th 2013	Larrasoana to Cizur Menor	20.9 Km
May 14th 2013	Extra day in Pamplona
May 15th 2013	Cizur Menor to Puente La Reina	19 Km
May 16th 2013	Puenta La Reina to Estella	21.9 KM
May 17th 2013	Estella to Los Arcos	21.1 KM
May 18th 2013	Extra day in Los Arcos
May 19th 2013	Los Arcos to Lograno	28.6 KM
May 20th 2013	Lograno to Najera	30.1 KM
May 21st 2013	Najera to santo Domingo De La Calzada (La Rioja)	21 KM
May 22nd 2013	Extra day in La Rioja
May 23rd 2013	santo Domingo De La Calzada (La Rioja) to Belorado	22.9 KM
May 24th 2013	Belorado to San Juan De Ortega	24.3 KM
May 25th 2013	San Juan De Ortega to Burgos	25.6 KM
May 26th 2013	Extra day in Burgos
May 27th 2013	Burgos to Hornillos del Camino	21 KM	Happy Birthday Erik
May 28th 2013	Hornillos Del Camino to Castrojeriz	20.2 KM
May 29th 2013	Castrojeriz to Fromista	25.2 KM
May 30th 2013	Extra day in Fromista
May 31st 2013	Fromista to Carrion De Los Condes	20.5 KM
June 1st 2013	Carrion De Los Condes to Terradillos De Los Templarios	26.8 Km
June 2nd 2013	Terradillos De Los Templarios to Hermanillos De La Calzado	26.9 KM	Happy Birthday Kathleen
June 3rd 2013	Hermanillos De La Calzado to Mansilla de las Mulas	24.5 KM
June 4th 2013	Mansilla De Las Mulas to Leon	18.6 KM
June 5th 2013	Extra day in Leon
June 6th 2013	Leon tpoVillar De Mazarife	22.2 KM
June 7th 2013	Villar De Mazarife to Astorga	31.2 KM
June 8th 2013	Extra day in Astorga
June 9th 2013	Astorga to Rabanal Del Camino	21.4 KM
June 10th 2013	Rabanal Del Camino to Molinaseca	26.5 KM
June 11th 2013	Molinaseca to Villa Franca Del Bierzo	30.9KM	Happy Birthday Andrea
June 12th 2013	Extra day in Villa Franca Del Bierzo
June 13th 2013	Villa Franca Del Bierzo to O'Cebreiro	30.1 Km
June 14th 2013	Extra day in O'Cebreiro
June 15th 2013	O'Cebreiro to Triacastela	21.3 KM	Happy Birthday Thomas
June 16th 2013	Triacastela to Sarria	18.7 KM
June 17th 2013	Sarria to Portomarin	22.4 KM
June 18th 2013	Portomarin to Palas De Rei	24.8 KM
June 19th 2013	Palas De Rei to Arzua/Ribadiso	25.8 Km
June 20th 2013	Ribadiso to O Pedrouzo	22.1 KM
June 21st 2013	O Pedrouzo to Santiago	20.1 KM	Happy Birthday Gwen
June 22nd 2013	Stay in Santiago
June 23rd 2013	Stay in Santiago
June 24th 2013	Santiago to Negreira	22.4 KM
June 25th 2013	Negreira to Olveiroa	33.1 Km
June 26th 2013	Olveiroa to Finisterre	31.2 KM	Happy Birthday Laurie
June 27th 2013	Extra night in Finisterre
June 28th 2013	Bus to Compostella and stay over night
June 29th 2013	Flight to Madrid Stay at Hostel Avenida Barajas	5:35 P.M	Happy Birthday Kim
June 30th 2013	Flight Home	10:50 A.M.	Happy Anniversary Gwen and Paul
	Arrive home	6:40 P.M.