Preparation and First Steps

Bienvenido!

We are about to leave Madrid after ten days of Spanish classes, walking, eating and museum going.

Leaving Madrid for St. Jean Pied Port and the start of the Camino, Anne and I are noticing, with unusual focus, our small aches and pains, especially in our feet and legs.  The smallest pain is thoroughly probed and iced down. Several times, we have packed our backpacks, taken everything out, then repacked them, just to make sure that nothing has been left out.

Anne and I have taken different paths to preparing for the Camino.  Anne has been walking several miles a day.  Her later walks were with a lightly loaded back pack, to get the feel of it on her shoulders.   She has become an expert in the internet’s vast literature on the Camino.  I have prepared by mountain biking and reading Spanish history.   I have been giving Anne lectures on the paintings in the Prado, a picture gallery of the Spanish royal family (pero las lecturas son muy cortas porque yo comprendo muy poco). The moment of truth is fast arriving.