soaring out of the ocean, covered in seashells

I spent a long time trying to think of a cool first sentence for this blog post, but it's really not so much cool as incredibly nerdy. I'm getting so stoked about doing Pèlerinage de Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle next year. It's a medieval pilgrimage to where St James is buried in Santiago de Compostela, in Spain.



In the middle ages the pilgrimage route was a huge deal, you would walk from your front door to the church in Spain and for some people the trip took months. Some pilgrims did it for fun and some did it to be forgiven for sins, which is fun too. But after the Black Plague everyone's schedules got a little crazy, and then television was invented and people were too busy with that (missing a couple years of history here). Anyway, now it's cool again, and you can walk on the same paths they took in the Middle Ages. I want to take the path that starts in Southern France and goes through Spain.



The Way of St James combines everything I like: hiking, France, and medieval history. I can't think of any better combination, unless there were animals, and there probably will be sheep so that's covered too. The whole time you get to see awesome mountains and castles like these:





And there are seashells like this one that mark the path.



No one can agree on what their historical symbolism is, but most stories involve someone drowning in the ocean and then soaring out of the water alive, covered in seashells. I love it.

Walking from Marseille area to Santiago de Compostela would take over a month, so I'm going to do an abbreviated trip probably. But I am so excited. If you're going to be in France, you should come with me. If you're not going to be in France you should be. France is the place to be right now.