Madrid. Day 3, July 6 2013

Well I managed to wake up much later today.  I slept in until nearly 8am, Monica and the kids were well awake before me, fiddling on their various electronic devices.  We had another sensational breakfast complete with numerous 'cafe con leche' and made our way on foot again down the Paseo de la Castellana to the centre of old Madrid.

This time we wandered into the Plaze de la Sol.  Madrid is made up of lots of plazas or town squares interlinked by a matrix of narrow cobbled streets.  Imagine an old town square about 100 metres across lined on all sides by wonderful old buildings, all paved, buskers, cafes, street artists etc all around, some stairs descending to a metro station in the middle and anywhere up to 6 or 8 streets leading into the space.  You walk down any one of those streets a few hundred meters (picture back street car chase in a Bond movie) to another square, similar but different in its own way from the last one.  I LOVE EUROPE.  Anyway we went to Plaza del Sol to find a Vodafone store.

What you will notice, if you are one of the four people paying attention to my blogging, is that all of my first few blogs in Europe all got dumped on the web at the same time.  You see up until this date we had not yet sorted out our mobile phone/wifi issues.  We are basically relying on free wifi hotspots to jump online and post stuff or check email.  Once we got sorted in Madrid we wanted to get ourselves a Spanish Sim to be able to use our mobiles and get online on the iphones etc whenever we needed without paying a gazillion dollars to do so with global roaming.  Anyway, we found a vodafone store, procured a sim and got our communications a bit more up to speed in Plaza del Sol.  There are still a few glitches to overcome.  It was reasonably easy except for the fact that the texts that Vodafone sent me once the Sim was in are all in Spanish, you try working out how to verify your number etc in Spanish.  That's not the worst of it either, every time I go to use my mobile to make a call all I get is a 2 minute message in Spanish about what I need to do to make it work properly.  Sounds like this ... 'Podriamuchachoqueirivaladellaiastescondaranos' and on it goes.  I am still to sort that part of my communications out:)

Anyway after we got our vodafone sim sorted we wandered through one of those cobbled back streets to Plaza Mayor.  Magnificent.  If you want to know what it is like just go to google images and type in Plaza Mayor Madrid.  I am still working out how to get images uploaded otherwise I would whack one in here.  The sights and sounds, the smells, the Spanish people with the superfast way of speaking, it was just brilliant.  Having only been here for a day or so I am falling in love with this town and its lively inhabitants, they are all beautiful with their jet black hair, their olive skin, their ebony eyes.  They exude a love of life, of simple things, food, family, rest.  Like the French not many speak English but unlike the French you feel life and  joy flow freely from them, they are open, welcoming.  The French speak French to protect their dying language, they are proud of it and don't want it to disappear on a globalised stage.  The Spanish speak Spanish because it is beautiful, a gazillion people all over the world speak their language, it is in no fear of being overwhelmed by English, it is lyrical, melodic, magical and it flows from these Spaniards like light from the sun, like laughter from happiness, like tears from joy.  Spend a summer's morning in Plaza Mayor, sit with a cafe con leche in the company of someone you love, let it all soak in and you'll see what I mean.

After leaving Plaza Mayor we made the short walk to the Palacio Real, aka the Royal Palace.  It was stunning, sort of a cross between Buckingham Palace and Versailles.  We paid our 10 euros and spent an hour or two wandering through this opulent masterpiece.  Huge tapestries hung from cathedral like walls, chandeliers beyond reckoning, all gold and crystal sat suspended in mid air above bedchambers, state rooms, banquet halls and the like.  Our kids were blown away by the sheer scale of the place.  A highlight for me of course was the armory, or the Ameria Real.  It was chokka block with suits of armour, life sized models of horses with their full armour on and knights seated upon them, swords, ancient pistolas, cross bows, the lot.  I love that stuff, I am a big fan of what I like to call 'acoustic weapons' and Spain were the masters of that art for centuries.

Our afternoon and evening finished like most have.  We had a late siesta, woke to go out for tapas and mojitos (still awaiting our first Sangria, I asked the fella in Spanish for one and when he answered 'vino tinto or vino blanco' I thought he meant they only had red or white wine so I moved onto a mojito. What he was asking was did I want it based on red or white wine.  Never knew you had a choice until now).  It is interesting trying to keep the kids awake at that hour of the night.  Even after an hour or more siesta they still struggle to get up and going in the evening.  I have found that coca cola works well.  We order, 'dos cervesa and dos coca cola per favor' and it seems to work.  As the bottles are only 200ml Harry has tried to convince us that they should get 3 to our one as in Australia the cokes come in 600ml bottles, the logic seems to escape his mother but as a Coca Cola aficionado I understand his point.

We made our way back to our hotel for our last night in Madrid, put the kids off to bed, did some washing in the sink and settled in to watch a bit of TV before sleep.  To give you some context of when this occurred we were alarmed to see that a Boeing 777 had just crash landed within the hour at San Francisco in the states, the very model that we had flown all the way to Europe on.

We had enjoyed our time in Madrid, it was quickly drawing to a close.  Tomorrow the train to Leon and after that the Camino!

Buen Camino Peregrinos

Madrid. Day Two, July 5, 2013.

I found myself awake quite early again today.  Even though it was after 5am this time I am still looking forward to being able to sleep in until a bit later, maybe about 6 or 7 would be nice.  Having said that I did not jump straight in and start writing my blog, I suppose my body is gradually adapting to being on the other side of the world.

The kids slept in a bit longer.  We headed down to breakfast in this very flash hotel about 8.30 to be greeted by silver cutlery, a man pouring us coffee at our table, 'con leche senor?', 'si, gracias' says I only to have hot milk added to our morning constitutional.  HOT.  Magnificent I tell you.

Of course the brekky was a full buffet and wonderful.  I had coffee poured for me by a man with a white towel draped across his arm no less than on 3 separate occasions during the meal.  I was going for more but Monica made me stop.

The head waiter was a lovely fella, he was very patient with our Spanish, spoke English very well of course and encouraged our kids to us the local tongue.  He very graciously prompted them and taught them some key things to say and when to do so as well.  It was very welcoming and a positive addition to a lovely moment on our journey so far.

After breakfast we strolled down a tree lined avenue in the middle of the main road that sort of disects Madrid, the Paseo de la Castellana.  It took us about 35 or 40 minutes to reach the main part of Madrid, not that we were really walking very fast.  It was just such a beautiful morning and such a pleasant thing to do that we took our time.  We thougt a good place to start in the Spanish capital was the Museo de Prado.  We were right.

The Prado is the most famous Museum in Spain and one of the most important in Europe.  It houses many millions of dollars worth of art particularly works by Goya, Valazquez and Ruebens.  It was stunning.  The overwhelming theme that I was presented with though was nudity.  Man there are a lot of naked people, mostly ladies, in museums.  There were enough naked men to make Zoe uncomfortable and we tried to assure her that when it was 'art' naked sculptures and paintings were okay.  It was all a good bit of fun.  Harry has decided if they are 200 years old or older then looking at images of naked ladies is perfectly fine, indeed probably an important thing to do as part of your education, I agreed, his mother gave us cautious approval.

A great moment though was when I was explaining a particularly important painting to Zoe.  We each had audio guides, those electronic devices that you hold to your ear which give you info regarding what you are looking at.  This of course made me an instant expert.  After hearing the commentary on 'Las Meninas'  by Velazquez  I was explaining to Zoe how the picture was framed, who was in it, why it was important and how wonderful it was to be in the same space as such an iconic art work.  She replied, 'Yeah dad, I know I listened to the commentary.  Did you know that there are 11 horses and 26 dogs in this room?'  Priorities.  She is an animal lover my girl, she loved the Prado because of the high number of animals depicted in art.  Didn't really care at all whether Goya had captured the ephemeral nature of leadership with blurred brush strokes or whether a painting had hung in Napolean's palace but she counted every dog, horse, chicken and lamb in the joint.  She may not know art but she knows what she likes.  A beautifully innocent moment from a lovely little girl.

After leaving the Prado we hooked up with Sam and Ellen, my sister Jackie's two oldest kids.  They are currently travelling and living in Europe and Ellen is on her way back to Aus after this visit to Madrid tomorrow.  We met up with them after lunch and spent the afternoon with them.  It was truly wonderful to see family in such a distant place.  It was more wonderful to see what fine young people the have become.  At 21 and 22 they are a credit to Jackie and Des.

We wandered together through the Parque del Retiro and looked at the Palacio de Cristal and spent about half an hour looking for the Palacio de Velazquez which ended up being about 200 metres from the Crystal  Palace.  The trees were pretty big.  Walking through that park though just reminded me how much I love Europe in summer.  The grounds, the hedges, the trees, the grass, the locals, the lakes and fountains, the hot afternoons.  I can already feel the pressure of life and work sliding away as I breathe in the joy that is being on the continent in July.  If you haven't been over here, come.

By about 3pm we returned to our hotel for our siesta.  We all slept solid through to 7pm and got up to meet Ellen and Sam for tapas and mojitos at Plaza Mayor at 8.  The tapas was great, the mojitos and San Miguels flowed freely and as we made our way back to our hotel after 11pm the evening had finally cooled to the late 20's, perfect weather.  As we went off to bed the locals were still very much being served meals and sitting and chatting late into the night.  They know how to live these Spaniards.

Another beautiful day on our adventure over and done.  My Spanish had opportunity to flow a little fit more freely, particularly after a couple of beers, we had a great day on a foreign shore and I fall happily to sleep anticipating more of the delights of this magnificent town on the morrow.

Buen Camino Peregrinos.

Do Buy. July 3, 2013

It is currently about 3.30am local time in the famous city of Dubai.  The reason that I am up so early is that we have a 5am pick up from our hotel for a lift to the airport to fly out to Madrid.  Well, that is part of the reason, the other part is that it is about 9.30am in Hervey Bay and my body clock is still a bit out of whack.

We had a pretty uneventful 15 hour haul from Brisbane to Dubai on Tuesday night.  The flight was pretty bumpy for most of the second half so the seatbelt sign was constantly on and the toilets were constantly out of bounds.  You can imagine what 300 Queenslanders thought about that.  Other than a lady about three rows behind us who woke from who knows what dream with a loud scream (and simultaneously woke and scared the daylights out of the whole back half of the aircraft) the flight was okay.

We got to Dubai at 5am, had a seamless walk through immigration (after catching a train from the terminal to baggage collection, BIG airport), the transfer to the hotel was quick and by 5.45 we were in the foyer of our hotel.  Of course they told us we could not get into our room until after lunch.  Dang.

Heavily jetlagged and without much sleep we spent the day doing two bus tours of Dubai.  It was really good.  One tour took us through the old part of town, the spice and gold souks, the old boats still plying their trade on Dubai Creek.  Magnificent.  The second bus tour took us through new Dubai, the Burj el Arab, the Palm Islands and so on.  Fantastic.  By about 3pm we were back at the hotel and happily checking in for a hot shower and sleep.

Right now it is about 4.05 am so I need to get going to get the kids packed up and ready for transfer to our flight to Madrid.  Other than a good look around we have really only slept in Dubai.  We are stopping here on the way home in a few months so we know what we want to target at that point.

Only 7 hours to Madrid!

Buen Camino Peregrinos

Destinations, Dates and Distances

As we get closer and closer each day to our departure I thought I would share where will be and how far we will be walking on our adventure.

This post is also the first one I have done using Blogger on my iPad. It is sort of experimental, just seeing what capabilities the iPad has compared to the Mac as this is the device I will be using on the road.

At this stage text is looking easy so I will just post the text and fiddle with the rest at edit.

Enjoy.

WEEK ONE

July 7 Arrive in Leon by train from Madrid
July 8 Leon to Villar de Mazarife 22km
July 9 Villar de Mazarife to Hosptal de Orbigo 17km
July 10 Hospital de Orbigo to Astorga 14km
July 11 Astorga to Rabanal del Camino 19km
July12 Rabanal del Camino to Molinaseca 24km
July 13 Molinaseca to Ponferrada 8km
July 14 Rest Day in Ponferrada 0km

WEEK TWO

July 15 Ponferrada to Villafranca del Bierzo 23km
July 16 Villafranca del Bierzo to La Portela de Valcarce 15km
July 17 La Portela de Valcarce to O'Cebreiro 13km
July 18 O'Cebreiro to Triacastela 21km
July 19 Triacastella to Sarria 21km
July 20 Rest Day in Sarria 0km

WEEK THREE

July 21 Sarria to Portomarin 23km
July 22 Portomarin to Palas de Rei 23km
July 23 Palas de Rei to Melide 15km
July 24 Melide to Arzua 13km
July 25 Arzua to Amenal 23km
July 26 Amenal to Santiago de Compostela 14km
July 27 Rest Day in Santiago de Compostela 0km
July 28 Depart Santiago de Compostela by Train

Buen Camino Peregrinos

I Will Not Say Do Not Weep

I'm a Tolkien fan.  I have been a Tolkien fan for many years.  My Year 8 English teacher gave me a copy of 'The Hobbit' to read and thus began a lifelong love affair with the writings of JRR Tolkien.  I now have quite a substantial collection of books and memorabilia.  It has always been a literary obsession for me, I love reading Tolkien's work.  I am a hoarder though so I have everything from a cigarette lighter from 'The Eagle and Child' where Tolkien used to drink, right through to a limited edition replica of Anduril, Aragorn's sword from the LOTR movies.

Books, books and more books.  I have hundreds of them, I have all sorts of stuff that people started to give me when the LOTR movies came out as well, that was when it became really tricky to be Tolkien collector.  You had to be discerning on just what to procure, you could easily spend your time loading up your collection with, well rubbish.  And of course now 'The Hobbit' is becoming its own marketing phenomenon with the release of those movies happening right now.

You might think that the title of this post is a bit weird.  It is in fact a line from right near the end of the Lord of the Rings.  In a moment of final farewell, when there is genuine sadness and friends are being forever sundered Gandalf says to the assembled group, 'I will not say 'do not weep', for not all tears are an evil.'  I'm not suggesting for a moment that people will be sad to see us go off on our wonderful trek  across Spain to Santiago de Compostela, or indeed miss us so desperately, however there is some sadness in leaving home, family and friends for a long time.

The thought is worth pondering I reckon.  Imagine what it must have been like a thousand years ago when people left to take the pilgrim road to Santiago.  Their families would have no idea whether or not they would see them again.  The journey was dangerous, the road was long, communication was virtually non-existant.  There would have been real tears.  But not all tears are an evil, sometimes even now I get a bit teary when I think of just what a remarkable thing it is to take my children on such an amazing adventure, I mist up when I consider that for the immediate future I have the great pleasure of just 'being' with my little family, my wife and kids.  A sentimentalist perhaps.

And then the planets align.

Last night when we had friends around for a BBQ to watch the British and Irish Lions play the Wallabies we were given a little going away card.

Not all who wander are lost.  Another cracking line from JRRT.  And what a beautiful image.  There is real joy for me in that moment, there is real depth in the idea of wandering with intent, of being present in nature and just soaking up something really special.

The idea of going on a pilgrimage, of walking the Camino, of strolling through the Spanish countryside is truly breathtaking.  The sense of stillness, of awe that I get looking at the gent in that image above sits with me now as we make our final preparations to fly out to Spain in less than 10 days.  Oh its hectic right now, but I think we are moving towards something wonderful.

I'll conclude today with some extended text from the very last pages of The Lord of the Rings.  I have just read it again and it is beautiful, it speaks of a journey over the seas, through the mist to the undying lands.  Heaven perhaps.

'Yes,' said Gandalf; 'for it will be better to ride back three together than one alone.  Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-earth.  Go in peace!  I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.'

Then Frodo kissed Merry and Pippin, and last of all Sam, and went aboard; and the sails were drawn up , and the wind blew, and slowly the ship slipped away down the long grey firth; and the light of the glass of Galadriel that Frodo bore glimmered and was lost.  And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed on into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water.  And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.'

Buen Camino Peregrinos

Buenos dias peregrinos,

My darling wife told me this morning that it is five weeks to the day that we catch a train from Madrid to Leon in Spain to begin our Camino de Santiago.  Tomorrow, it will be five weeks to the day that we walk our first stage from Leon to Villar de Mazarife.  We have to get to Spain first.

5 weeks!

It's been longer than that since I posted my last blog.

The reality is that we have been pretty much busy with the day to day ordinariness of life and busyness of work over the past month or so.  Since our epic and wet week camping in the Sunshine Coast hinterland we have continued to do walks of varying lengths, Monica has been much more faithful with that discipline than myself though, I must confess.

However I can happily report two things that have happened this week that have assisted me in re-focusing my attention to the impending pilgrimage.

First of all, unexpectedly, we received in the mail this week our credencial or Pilgrim's Passports.  The company that are assisting us, Camino Ways, have forwarded us the documents that we will have stamped at each day as a record of where we stayed along the Camino.  These will be presented at the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela, so that we can be issued with our Compostela, or certificate of pilgrimage.  You will see in the image below that they are shiney and new, ready to receive our names, details and the various stamps from the many places we are staying.  I wonder how they will look in two months time when we have completed this epic trip.

The second exciting thing that has happened this week is that I have also received a huge map that I ordered to be displayed at our college.  I ordered the map from the website, Camino Down Under.  They have some really good resources for Australians considering this epic adventure.  Along with the map I also ordered an all weather map book and handy guide book that will assist us in our final weeks of preparation for the walk.  There is lots of good stuff in it about what to take and how to prepare for the journey.  It is particularly helpful because it is written by an Australian, the context therefore works quite well, much of what comes out of Europe assumes better access perhaps to things European.

To conclude today's blog I thought I would include the text from my fortnightly principal's blurb that I wrote for our college newsletter this week.  It refers to the above mentioned map.  Enjoy.

Short Steps For Old Man Altmann

There is an old saying that I am sure we are all very aware of.  The longest journey begins with the first step.  My favourite version of the same is the, the longest journey begins with the shortest step.  There is a nice poetic balance in that line between longest and shortest.

As you probably know by now my wife, kids and I are off on a holiday of a lifetime next term, walking in Spain and then travelling around Europe.  It is so exciting and so close at the moment, I can almost taste the tapas and sip the sangria!  And of course even though we fly out in just a few short weeks our journey has already begun, it began well over a year ago when I first approached the College Council with my idea for a sabbatical exploration of The Way of St James.  Upon approval of that leave, and connected long service leave, our family started to go on short walks, look up maps of Europe, dig out our old backpacking gear, talk to travel agents and so on.  Short steps, but we were on our way.

I procured a large wall map of the north of Spain last week that I intend to hang in the front office of our Admin building.  It is enormous, it is specially designed to show the Camino Santiago, the Way of St James.  I’m hoping it serves as a short step towards an imminent trip to Spain for our future senior students, a tantalizing image of what lays ahead, a seed planter getting our families connected to the idea that this might be a pretty remarkable thing to do.  There is a beautiful quote on the bottom of the poster that reads, Para llegor a Santiago como un juven - empieza el Camino como un viejo.  In english that translates to To arrive in Santiago like a young person, begin the Camino like an old man.

I enjoyed that quote because in Europe I am an old man.  My name ‘Altmann’ is german for old man, alt mann.  For me it works on a number of other levels though.  The first is the physical, if you want to walk a long way and finish well, don’t go too hard too early.  First steps should be short steps. 

Secondly, and more profoundly, I think there is a spiritual element in there as well.  In Matthew 18: 3 Jesus said, ‘Unless you change and become like little children you will never inherit the kingdom of Heaven.’  As intelligent, modern, scientific, western, 3^rd world adults we want proof, we demand to know how it works and what powers it.  But there are some things in life that we just need to accept simply, graciously and faithfully.  

Often a life changing experience helps us get that perspective, a chronic illness, changes in our financial situation, injury of a loved one, a 300 kilometre walk across a foreign country.  We need to cast off our old man ways, our hubris and our self reliance and simply finish the walk like a child, faithfully accepting things as they come along and relying on a God of love to provide that which we need to get through.

It really is the shortest step.

Buen Camino

Shane

What a difference a week makes!

We have just returned home from spending a week camped in the Imbil State Forest at Charlie Moorland Camp Ground.

It was wet.

It rained every day.

A lot.

This was no bad thing though.  Although Monica, the kids and I have done lots of walking in preparation for our impending pilgrimage, we have not done a lot in poor weather.  The whole purpose of our time in the bush was to get some serious bushwalking done.  And we did but we also got to test our preparations for walking in serious rain.

Day one we walked from our campsite out to the Fig Tree Circuit (image below) just south of Kenilworth.  It was a return trip of about 10km and pretty easy going.  One of our friends we were walking with, Imogen, discovered a feral lime tree which she promptly harvested for use later that evening in our G&T's.

The last 15 minutes or so of the walk saw torrential rain bucket down.  We dragged out our coats and soldiered on arriving back at our Austrack Camper sodden but content.

Day Two we attacked the Mt Allen Walk, an 8.8km return circuit of torturous terrain, 4 there and 4 back.  Normally we would walk that distance in well less than 2 hours.  It took 4.  The top of Mt Allen was almost 600 metres above sea level, our camp I have discovered since was about 150m.  The first kilometre was pretty much flat meaning that a rise of about 450 metres in around 3km.  It was very steep, indeed in some places absolutely ridiculous.  It tested us all quite a bit, with only light showers falling on occasion it made it quite lovely though.  There is something about walking in mountains in misty weather that refreshes the soul.  Below are two images, one that shows the view about half way up, the other Monica and Zoe on a particularly steep bit, of course the picture does not really show just how steep it was.  You had to be there :)

Day Three saw us do a short walk as the circuit we wanted to attack had been smashed by recent floodwaters.  Only about 3km in all that morning.

Day Four we went exploring.  We walked about 15 kilometres up some quite steep terrain and along some beautiful rainforest creeks and finally found the Sunday Creek Road after about 3 hours.  We walked a further 45 minutes or so back down into our campsite.  It was a pretty wet walk, we experienced light misty rain, torrential downpours and even some patches of sunlight.  All our gear got a good work out.  Our boots proved to be magnificent, our coats kept us dry.

So all in all we walked about 36 or 37 kilometres in four days, much of it uphill, a good bit of it in some unpleasant weather.

I have titled this post, What A Difference A Week Makes because until now we haven't had a repeated experience of having to get up and go the very next day when your body has not had time to recover, when your gear is still a bit damp, when you haven't enjoyed a particularly good night's sleep.  I think our wet camping week taught us a lot about what lays ahead on the Camino de Santiago.

And I'm excited.  We did okay.  In fact it was quite enjoyable, cathartic even.

Buen Camino Peregrinos!

Shane