The Way of St James - A Cyclist's Guidebook

A 1570km cycle route along the Way of St James pilgrim route from Le Puy in France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Uses roads with a good surface for touring cyclists, and averages only 50km per day. Also includes routes from Santiago to Finisterre and Padron.

In the past ten years many books and guides have been written about the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. They are all based on a route which, with a few variations each year to circumnavigate building work, roadworks and worn-out pathways, has been clearly waymarked and laid out as close as possible to the original pilgrim way. This route is now travelled by thousands of pilgrims each year, constantly making it deeper and wider, with the result that non-walkers also tend to find themselves on the pathway. Horse riders manage quite well, but cyclists have a number of problems. Those on mountain bikes are able to bounce their way over the boulders and ruts which are to be found everywhere, but risk the abuse of walkers who feel (quite justifiably) that their territory is being encroached upon, whereas touring cyclists find much of the track impossible to negotiate and so must look for alternatives, which are offered in this book.

Using roads with a good surface for touring cyclists, this guide sets out to follow the original pilgrimage route (camino) as closely as possible. It offers the opportunity to visit every major church and shrine along the way, and includes a few detours to outlying monasteries for good measure. Several variants are also given, to provide for the fit and not-so-fit pilgrim, and accommodation along the way in gîtes d’étape (the French equivalent of a superior youth hostel), chambres d’hôte (similar to English bed and breakfast), hotels, refugios (Spanish refuges) and hostals (small hotels, also called fondas and hospedaje) is listed. For those who want something extra, routes from Santiago to Finisterre and to Padrón are also included (Appendixes 1 and 2).

The route has been divided into easy daily stages, some of which are shorter than others, to accommodate time taken crossing mountain ranges, or riding on difficult roads, or because of fascinating places to visit. It is not prescriptive, however, and those with stronger legs and more courage may wish to split the journey differently. Some sections of the route are devoid of accommodation, and these stages are longer than they should be. If new hotels or hostels are opened in the future, then the lengths of these stages could easily be rethought.

The roads used are almost always surfaced with tarmac. In France they tend to be quiet country lanes, and even the short stretches of Routes Nationals are of good quality and not busy. French drivers often sound their horns to warn you of their approach, and give you a wide berth and a cheery wave as they pass. In Spain there are few country lanes. Most of the roads are wide and fast, and they usually have a narrow hard shoulder which doubles as a cycle lane. Drivers do not tend to give cyclists much room, and heavy lorries often streak down these roads with their nearside wheel straddling the hard shoulder. However, compared with English roads we found most Spanish ones to be very quiet. In general, road surfaces were as good as those found in England, but main streets in villages and small towns, particularly in Spain, are often cobbled, with deep drains running down the centre. Negotiate them with care, especially in wet weather when they become very slippery. Expect to find farm animals wandering at will on Spanish country roads and in villages, and expect to find dogs everywhere.

History

Saint James
James the Great, Jesus’ cousin and brother of St. John, is as much a character of legend in Spain as St. George is in England. Facts about his life are hard to come by, although it is fairly certain that he was beheaded by Herod Agrippa in Jerusalem in 44AD, making him the first disciple to be martyred. The rest, however, is mere hypothesis. Reference is made in a Greek text to James having visited Spain on an evangelising mission, but if it did occur its success was strictly limited. It is believed that James then returned to the Holy Land, where he met his fate. But it is after his death that James’ legend takes wings of fantasy.

His body and head are said to have been taken by his followers, Athanasius and Theodoro, to Jaffa where a stone boat (literally, a boat made from stone, according to the legend) was commissioned. Within a week this boat and its precious cargo were washed up at Iria Flavia (modern day Padrón), only 20km from present-day Santiago de Compostela. Athanasius and Theodoro were at first imprisoned, then released as a result of angelic intervention, and eventually James was buried.

For 800 years he appears to have lain undisturbed and forgotten, until a hermit called Pelagius had a vision of a star shining on a field. Again, legend has it that this resulted in the discovery of the tombs of St. James and his companions. It was not long before Alfonso II, King of the Asturias, declared St. James patron saint of Spain, and soon visions of Santiago Matamoros (Saint James the Moor-slayer) were being seen during battles against the Moorish invader, most notably at the Battle of Clavijo, where he is said to have appeared on a white charger to lead the Spanish troops. A church and monastery were built over the tombs and so the history of Santiago de Compostela began.

The name Santiago de Compostela either originated from campus stellae, meaning field of stars and referring to the place of the tombs’ discovery, or from the Latin componere, indicating a Roman necropolis. In an interesting recent discovery, the interior of one of the tombs has been found to bear an inscription in Greek: ‘Athanasius martyr’.

Pilgrimage
In the past, people went on pilgrimage for a wide variety of reasons, many of which were personal – pilgrims might want to atone for their sins, for example, or to profess their faith. Some, rather like today’s tourists, wanted to visit shrines and venerate holy relics, and some were even there on behalf of rich clients who were too busy to go for themselves. But many pilgrims began their journey, at least, simply to escape the drudgery of their medieval lives.

The appeal of Santiago de Compostela was manifold. After its capture in 1078 by the Turks, the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem had become almost impossible to visit, and for many a pilgrimage to Rome to see the tomb of St. Peter meant a crossing of the Alps with all its attendant hazards. However, the journey to Santiago had much to recommend it: it was a good long way to travel, it had enough difficulties to make it arduous but not impossible, and it had a wealth of shrines and relics to visit on the way. Also, it was heavily promoted by both Spain and the French church at Cluny, who saw it as not only a source of future wealth, but also a way of resisting the threat of Moorish dominance.

As the popularity of the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela grew (over half a million people per year in the 11th century), so the number of monasteries, hospitals and hermitages to assist the pilgrims along the way also burgeoned. In the middle of the 12th century, Aimery Picaud, a monk from central France, produced the first ever guide to the pilgrimage, as part of his Codex Calixtinus. Picaud included not only descriptions of the holy sites, but also his own unrestrained views on the character and customs of the inhabitants of the regions through which the pilgrim would pass.

The pilgrim way to Santiago retained its popularity until the end of the 15th century, and indeed never fully declined. But thanks in no small part to the efforts this century of the priest of the village of O Cebreiro, Dr Elias Valiña Sampedro, the pilgrimage is now enjoying a great resurgence. If its popularity continues to grow, especially during holy years (when St. James’ Day, 25 July, falls on a Sunday), then Santiago may no longer be able to cope with the enormous number of visitors who will descend on it, not just from along the pilgrimage routes, but also by air, road and rail.

It is probable that one of the very first pilgrims from Le Puy, Bishop Gottschalk, rode on a horse to Santiago, as did the intrepid Aimery Picaud. Cycling pilgrims, therefore, should not feel inferior to their walking counterparts. They are simply using the mode of transport most suitable for them. There is something of a hierarchy amongst the pilgrims along the way – walkers look down on cyclists, those who do the whole route look down on those who only cover part of it, those who make the journey under their own steam look down on those who travel its length by car, and everyone looks down on the daytrippers who wander around Santiago with their broomstick staffs and plastic water-gourds – but this attitude should really be discouraged. We are all pilgrims and should be allowed to make our own pilgrimage in our own way.