Come to the UK! We have all kinds of long-distance walks. Some are pilgrimage routes, some just nice hiking routes, or both!
Welsh Camino or
here or
here: just under 2 weeks long, lush green countryside, a nice waterfall, forest trails that look like enchanted garden, and end with 3 days walking down glorious coastal path (we were lucky with the weather!). To feed the soul, you’ll learn about Medieval saints like St Winefride who has a shrine also dubbed the Welsh Lourdes, it’s a beautiful shrine on much smaller scale than Lourdes, you can take home the holy water. St Beuno who spread Christianity in much of Wales and now has dozens of churches named after him - he was St Winefride’s uncle and after she was beheaded by a Prince for refusing to marry him, he put her head back in place and she was alive until she died of old age at an Abbey. The site her head stopped rolling became the source of the well
You’ll pass the smallest cathedral in Britain, where the first Welsh translation of the bible was kept. A few more old churches with histories.
The path is marked with green arrows and you collect stamps in places you visit and at the end you can get a certificate!
The final part of the pilgrimage is a boat trip to Bardsey Island, also known as the island of 20,000 saints because apparently they all died there… the Pope had said 2 x pilgrimages to Bardsey equaled one to Rome…
Or the more famous British pilgrimages:
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St James’ Way (Reading to Southampton),
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Pilgrim’s Way (Winchester to Canterbury)
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Finchale (Camino Inglés) (22 miles, this is the English part of the Camino Ingles)
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St Cuthbert’s Way (100km Melrose in the Scottish Borders, to Holy Island/Lindisfarne off the Northumberland Coast)
Other long distance trails:
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West highland way in Scotland
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Pennine way
Having a gorgeous Easter weekend here in the British Isles so I’m just feeling very optimistic about doing long hikes here