Not many people know of, or the history of the Camino, so here's some bits for you to gobble up and chew on:
The Way of St James, or the Camino de Santiago, has existed for over a thousand years. It was one of the most important Christian pilgrimages during medieval times and was considered one of three pilgrimages on which a plenary indulgence (absolution of sins) could be earned---the others are the Via Francigena to Rome and the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Legend holds that St. James's (one of the 12 apostles of Jesus) remains were carried by boat from Jerusalem to northern Spain where he was buried on the site of what is now the city of Santiago de Compostela, Northeastern Spain. There are some, however, who claim that the bodily remains at Santiago belong to Priscillian, the fourth-century Galician leader of an ascetic Christian sect, Priscillianism, who was one of the first Christian heretics to be executed.
During the Camino, you can take one of many pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela. Traditionally, as with most pilgrimages, the Way of Saint James began at one's home and ended at the pilgrimage site. Nowadays, a few of the routes are considered main ones. During the Middle Ages, the route was highly traveled. However, the Black Plague, the Protestant Reformation and political unrest in 16th- century Europe resulted in its decline. By the 1980s, only a few pilgrims arrived in Santiago annually. Though today, thousands of modern-day pilgrims come from around the world. Most arrive from an origination city in Spain or France and travel by foot about 10-25 miles per day to Santiago, staying in "refugios" by night, and rising with the sun to walk again in the morning. Temperature varies from very hot, to cold and damp in the mountains.
What's up with the Scallop Shell everywhere along the Camino?
The Scallop Shell symbol (looks like Shell Gas!) is used to mark the Camino, on Camino information packs, and anything involving the Camino. Why this symbol?
The scallop shell acts as a metaphor. The grooves in the shell, which come together at a single point, represent the various routes pilgrims have traveled, eventually arriving at a single destination: the tomb of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela. The scallop shell is also a metaphor for the pilgrim. As the waves of the ocean wash scallop shells up on the shores of Galicia, God's hand also guided the pilgrims to Santiago.
The scallop shell also niftily served practical purposes for pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago. The shell was just the right size for scooping water to drink or for eating out of as a makeshift bowl. Also, because the scallop shell is native to the shores of Galicia, the shell functioned as proof of completion. By having a scallop shell, a pilgrim could prove that he or she had finished the pilgrimage and had actually seen the "end of the world", which at that point in history was the Western coast of Spain.
To the end of the world, I go!!!
My parents always babbled-on about traveling through Europe after I finished college. It was my Mom's dream-de-lifetime! She envisioned seeing the grassy, verdant knolls of England, the castles of France, and the wineries of Spain, etc, etc, like a fairytale to her. Bad cosmic timing: she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis when I was in college and was home-ridden and passed away over the course of the following decade.
