Sagalouts
RIP 2015
have just returned after walking from Rome for various reasons I stopped 3 days after Arles not least a 15 euro flight from Nimes to London. I have posted pics on my blog below and will write in detail later.it's a great if solitary walk but my overwhelming experience was the reaction to the shell on my pack.I have always taken it to be a bit of decoration but on this walk I was stopped by so many people who wanted to talk or share their own experience of this way,giving me food-drink-once when finding out my planned stop for the night was full and contemplating 18km to the next place was enveloped by 2 former Italian female pilgrims who took me in hand phoned their local priest and got me a bed for the night-I was stopped by a guy building his own house alongside the way who had walked in Spain he fed me shared beer and experieances of his own way with me,gave me the use of his 4 star caravan for the night even brought me breakfast in the morning,a number of times I was given free coffee in bars because of my shell,welcomed into isolated towns by church representatives who had heard by bush telegraph that a pilgrim was on his way and offered a bed for the night,another time chased down by 2 priests in a car to tell me that there was hospitality in their town for the night plus they had an account with the local bar that provided free breakfast-that and all the other hospitality shown by clergy and locals alike made this way special and this Pilgrim ( whatever that means)feel very humble and to be honest a little bit of a fraud-I feel very different about this shell I have carried now for 3 years,I have always been aware of the shared comradeship that wearers feel just not to how wide this club extends-long may it last
