John Brierly

The French Way of St.James, the Camino Francés, is commonly known as the Camino de Santiago, a thrilling long distance path from the foothills of the Pyrenees in Southern France to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia a distance of 800 km (500 miles) requiring around 30 days of invigorating walking. Traversed by millions over the millennia the Camino de Santiago represents a major force for spiritual renewal and transformation. Every year a hundred thousand pilgrims take this route through the ever-changing splendour of its Landscape Temple. They walk the mountains pathways of Navarre, through the gently rolling hills and vineyards of La Rioja, the vast cereal crop fields of the isolated Meseta, the historic cities of Castilla y Le??n, the beauty of the Bierzo and the wooded glens and grasslands of Galicia. They will arrive tired but elated at Mateo's masterpiece the Portico de Gloria of Santiago cathedral ??? an unforgettable storybook in stone. Even hardened sceptics report a marked change in attitude and values by the time they reach this destination.

There are thousands of long distance pathways we can walk but only the Camino Francés has achieved world recognition for its historical and spiritual significance and, inevitably, such accolades bring ever greater numbers wishing to experience its power and potential for change and transformation. Although numbers have increased tenfold during the past ten years, this still represents only 20% of the pilgrims that walked the Camino each year during the medieval period with top estimates placing this at up to half a million travelling the route (there and back) each year. This is, perhaps, the biggest single change to medieval pilgrimage ??? few modern pilgrims walk home, travel today is invariably in one direction only.

100,377 pilgrims from 138 nationalities collected their certificates of completion or compostelas during 2006. The next Holy Year of St. James (When the saint's day, 24th July, falls on a Sunday) will be in 2010 when pilgrims arriving on foot at Santiago are likely to number quarter of a million to add to the countless millions who will arrive by 'other' means.

During the past ten years the Camino has witnessed an amazing revival to regain its place as the most popular Christian pilgrim route (as opposed to shrine) in the world but this is no modern fad for this ancient path has been transforming lives for more than ten centuries. In recognition of, 'The testimony to the power of faith and the 1,800 buildings of great historic interest that lie along its path' it was proclaimed the first European Cultural Itinerary in 1987 and inscribed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1993.