Your Stories, Your Camino – Peadar Costello

I was delighted to receive an email from Peadar Costello, a long time reader to this blog. He has been on the Camino Frances a number of times and has been been bitten by the Camino bug. He returns in September walking from St Jean Pied de Port to Belorado with a friend. Maybe he will write about this particular Camino when he returns? I wish him a Buen Camino either way!

Peadar writes…

I am blessed and fortunate to have been able to walk the Camino Frances. It took me three separate visits to complete the entire Camino and in classic Irish fashion I walked the last section first!

This is my first Camino story :

September 2011 : Astorga to Santiago de Compostela / Finisterre / Muxia

I was 50 in 2011 and had a long standing fascination with the Camino. My wife suggested that to mark this milestone, it was time to stop the Camino talk and start the Camino walk! So on a beautiful sunny Saturday evening I stepped off the Madrid bus in Astorga and headed for the Albergue Siervas de Maria to claim the last bed. Early the next morning I took my very first (nervous) steps on to the Camino but by the end of that first days walking I had secured a bed in the wonderful Albergue Gaucelmo in Rabanal del Camino and shared my first menu Peregrino meal with a multinational group of fellow Pilgrims.

I went to bed that night knowing that the Camino was to become a major part of my life from that day on.

From Rabanal I followed the following route :

El Acebo – Ponferrada – La Faba – Fonfria – Samos – Sarria – Portomarin – Palas de Rei – Ribadiso – O Pedrouzo.

After 13 magical days of walking I found myself in the Praza Obradoiro in Santiago staring up at the magnificent Cathedral tired, elated and emotional. My 2011 adventure continued further with a bus journey to Cee followed by three more magical days of walking from Cee – Finistere – Lires – and finally Muxia.

A wonderful end to a fantastic and life changing adventure . I had well and truly been ‘bitten’ by the Camino bug that resulted in further visits in 2013 and 2015 to complete the Camino Frances.

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