Planes, Trains and Orthotics: A Middle-Age Woman's Guide to Travel

Greetings from Espana! We are one day away from entering the City of Santiago de Compostela and the end of our abbreviated pilgrimage on the Camino. My blogs have been spotty because after walking 8-12 miles every day, it’s hard to focus, let alone be pithy. For four days, we have been on the Camino with 16 other pilgrims and three guides, all aging from 27 to 88.  Unlike our hiking trip to Croatia last year, my hiking skills have improved, (thank you to my weekend hiking buddies, Jo-Ann and Yuval) and I have moved up from a fledgling member of the JV team as I was last year, to the Varsity, albeit second string. There is one woman who has consistently been the first to complete each day’s hike—by a lot.  In fact, if we didn’t all eat our meals together, I would not be able to pick her out of a line-up, because all I have ever seen was the back of her.  But there are times that my chatting with new friends has slowed my progress. In fact, during one lively conversation ...

Hands down, the Portuguese are the nicest people I have ever met.  They are so helpful and just want the tourists to love them and their country...almost to a fault. On our last night in Porto, we decided to follow the advice given to us the previous evening, by our taxicab driver/Portuguese diction coach, and go to the restaurant he insisted was the best food in Porto.  He told us that while we would have to take a cab, it would be worth it, because it was a place frequented by locals.  With no other plans, it sounded great. And he was right. The food was incredible. But of course, there was a story.... We got a cab in front of our hotel and it turned out to be the same cab driver we had driven with earlier the day before!  (Not the restaurant critic/diction coach-another one) While our first ride together was only about 20 minutes, I felt like we were old friends when we got in the car. During that first ride, we had heard a great deal about her life, including...

We began our trip on the “glamping” version of the Camino by flying straight to Porto, the second largest city in Portugal. I think the flight was great because there was no one sitting in the middle seat, and we only felt marginally like “sardines.” Upon arrival at the hotel, we were confronted with our usual problems, like how the bloody lights turn on and off.  Our young porter explained in great detail, the complexities of our room’s light system and all I wanted to say was that I had just spent four hours sleeping on my airplane seat’s tray table, so he needed to go a little slower. I am all for supporting the environment, but upon leaving the room, does shutting off all things electrical save that much energy? I think not. We spent the day first, on a walking tour and then roaming around on our own. The citizens of this fair city are so friendly, and it’s clear that they want we, the tourists to be happy here and will do anything to help us towards that end. Take for ex...

Later this week, we are headed on another hiking trip beginning in northern Portugal and ending in the western part of Spain. While excited about getting away, it was not my first choice of places to visit,  but it was chosen as a result of marital compromise.  That’s why the success or failure of our trip all falls on the shoulders of Martin Sheen. I have never met Mr. Sheen, and in fact, my usual thoughts of him almost always bring me wistfully to his years as Commander-in-Chief, Jeb Bartlett, on “The West Wing.”  But it is not this role that has led us to our imminent journey. It is his 2010 movie, “The Way,”which is the story of a father who takes a 800 kilometer journey from the Pyrenees in France to the town of Santiago de Compostelo in Western Spain to take a journey that his son was never able to accomplish.  Known as “The Camino,” it is supposedly the path that Saint James took in his quest to spread Christianity to the Iberian Peninsula. Apparently, thous...