Welcome

Welcome to you if you have stumbled across this blog and if you have been pointed to it. This is a blog about pilgrimage, and my own discovery of pilgrimage. I have wanted to walk St James's Way to Compostela for a very long time, and now that I am retired, I have the opportunity to do so. I have decided to blog as I undertake this adventure. I am doing this pilgrimage in stages, a week or two at a time. So there will be periods when nothing will be happening here, unless I go on shorter more local pilgrimage walks and report them also. But then there will be a burst of activity, as I go back to where I left off and continue on the road.

There is no old established starting point for this pilgrimage in England - I rather suspect most people here were heading for Canterbury or Beverley or Walsingham, or even making the long journey to Rome. But on the continent there are many variants of the route starting in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Portugal, and France, as well as a host of variant routes all across Spain.

I decided that I wanted to start in France, and in particular in Vézelay, at the Basilica of St Mary Magdalene. This is a wonderful church, with astonishing carvings. It is a very prayerful place, and is staffed by the Community of Jerusalem, a mixed community of priests and nuns. It was a great joy and privilege to start in such a focused place of prayer and worship over the centuries. But I was also sent out from my own cathedral, Southwell Minster, with prayer and blessing, which meant a great deal to me.