Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Politically incorrect on the El Camino

By GERRY WARNER
Cranbrook Daily Townsman
April 22, 2009
You don't know how much I've looked forward to writing this column - and to quote the words of a once infamous politician - you're not going to have Warner to kick around anymore! At least for three months.
Let me explain.
Unlike Dick Nixon, who was forced to retire after Watergate and never returned to his job - thank God - I'm retiring today for a shorter period of time, until July 6 to be exact when I "unretire" and return to work. I guess you could call it a sabbatical, a leave of absence or a post-60 crisis as I prepare for what could be the Last Great Adventure of my life.
Next week, I'm off to the "Land of Oc," or Occitania as it was known in the Middle Ages, a broad swath of land in southern France known today as Languedoc and destination for many tourists wanting to enjoy the "good life" in the south of France. Back in the12th Century, Languedoc was home to the legendary Cathars, an early religious sect that practiced a liberal form of Christianity which saw them branded as heretics by the Roman Catholic Church and savagely repressed during the Albigensian Crusade when many Cathari - men, women and children - were burned at the stake as apostates.
Historians say the repression of the Cathars served as a dress rehearsal for the even more brutal violence that followed during the crusades when the Holy Roman Church attempted to regain Jerusalem from the Saracens. My interest is much more historic than religious and I'm greatly looking forward to climbing the mountain above Montsegur in Languedoc to the bloody fortress where the free-spirited Cathars made their last stand and where 250 of their leaders or "Parfaits" (perfects), as they were then called, were burned at the stake for refusing to recant their faith. This tragic event is wrapped in mythology with some historians claiming the Cathars, or "Good Christians as they were known, hid the Holy Grail before they were burned and the act of barbarity against them was the incident that sparked the religious wars that convulsed Europe for hundreds of years thereafter.
Whatever the case, the Cathar fortress is one castle I want to see. But I intend to see many more because after I leave Languedoc, I'm heading for St. Jean Pied de Port in the foothills of the Pyrenees in southern France close to the Spanish border which is one of the starting points for the famous El Camino Santiago, "the Way of St. James," an 800 km pilgrimage route to the Cathedral of Santiago Compostela in northwest Spain where the apostle James the Elder or James the Great is believed to be buried in the crypt of a cathedral too stunningly beautiful to be described.
Pilgrims, or "perigrinos" as they are described in Spanish, have been walking the Way of St. James for more than a thousand years and Napoleon himself led his armies along parts of it when he invaded Spain during the Napoleonic Wars of the 17th Century. So, a chance to walk where Napoleon walked. Who could turn that down?
Not me, or the 100,000 or so pilgrims that walk the Camino every year as the historic route grows more popular every year. I'm aware of at least a dozen or so Cranbrookians that have done this before me, and they and others tell me, that this is a "life altering experience." Whether or not that's true, I can hardly wait.
When you start at St. Jean, the very first day is likely the toughest of the entire pilgrimage because you walk 27 km over a pass through the Pyrenees to the walled village of Roncesvalles in Spain. Then it's another 50 km or so to Pamplona where Hemingway ran in front of the bulls during the festival of St. Fermin and also the setting for his famous novel, "The Sun Also Rises." I'll have a wine skin and a fishing rod with me just like Jake and Bill.
After Pamplona, you continue through Basque country in northern Spain through the La Roja region famous for its dark red wines. There's even a wine "fountain" at one point along the trail along with more great cathedrals, Knights Templar castles, monasteries and ruins. After six weeks or so, I should be in Santiago where, as the tradition goes, I'll kiss the statue of St. James and get my credential of completion making me a full-fledged pilgrim.
And then? Perhaps I'll carry on another two days to Cape Finisterre (Lands End) on the Atlantic Coast, and again as tradition decrees, strip my clothes off, burn them on the beach and walk naked into the sea to be naked before God.
As they say, "a life altering experience."
-- 30 --

1 Comments:

At 1:27 AM, Blogger Sil said...

Ah .... your soul is already on its way!
Just one thing (so that you are not disappointed) Roncesvalles is not a village and is not walled. It is a monastery complex with a 12th c church, a 'modern' 16th c Collegiate Church, a funery silo, a pilgrim's hostel (old granary) and two inns.
Take your time crossing from St Jean and if the locals advise you to follow the road roud to Valcarlos, listen to them. Many pilgrims have perished in sudden snow blizzards on the 'Napoleon' route. The other one is the authentic route of Charlemagne (Carlos) so you won't feel cheated by walking into the valley of Carlos!
Buen camino!
Sil

 

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