And to Finish ...

How do you finish the tale of such a great adventure, that has been a major influence on my life for the past 3 years, if not longer? I've been thinking long and hard, and there's no easy way to do it.

I think I'll just share a last selection of photos that have escaped the blog so far, and offer a few random bear thoughts to go with them.

The path of the camino has some lovely sections and some not so lovely, but if it were all the same, it wouldn't be half as interesting.

I did enjoy sections like the one in my first photo ...


We'd be walking through a woodland glade, with the sun shining through, enjoying a soft dirt track under our paws and some nice easy walking. And then, we'd come across a group of pilgrims having a picnic by a small stream. We would realise we knew them as companions along the way, and pause for a few friendly words. You might find it hard to see them behind my minder, but there were pilgrim picnicers there.

In fact, among that particular group of picnicers, were a lovely Dutch couple, minders of someone who became a good camino friend of George, Yorkie and myself. This was none other than Artis de Partis, who you see with me in my next photo (we were actually outside Santiago cathedral at the time).


I feel quite ashamed now that in an earlier post, before I got to know him, I referred to Artis as a strange creature! He is of interesting appearance, but that's as far as strange goes. He is delightful and has a very interesting life as the mascot of Amsterdam's Artis zoo. He is very well travelled and, if you look at the zoo's website you will see pictures of Artis all over the world. I'm sure a picture of him in Santiago will be appearing soon.

We'd like to visit Amsterdam before too long and, when we go, we will visit the zoo and look up Artis.

But back to the camino and another lovely quirk of the route. On more than one occasion we saw these adaptations to the sign used to warn motorists to drive carefully as the road was shared with the camino path.


We felt that the addition of the hair and skirt was graffiti at it's best - adding humour and not destroying the original. Everytime we saw it, it put a smile on our faces.

We didn't have a smile on our faces though, when we were woken in the middle of the night at the Rabanal alberque, by pilgrims getting up at about 5.00 a.m. to start walking in darkness. However, as we'd been woken up we also made an early start, setting out at 7.30 a.m. - even then it was still dark. We did feel it was worth it though to be able to see our beautiful surrounds gradually revealed by a lovely sunrise.


We concluded that perhaps every pilgrim should see at least one sunrise, and lots of sunsets (more of the latter as these don't require the early starts!)

Finally, for me, it was having such wonderful walking campanions as George, Yorkie and Pedro, that made our walk special. They may be veteran travellers, far better travelled than me, but they are definitely not travel weary and always take a great delight in each new day on the road.

Yorkie will always be Yorkie though, and here he is being thoroughly typical: trust him to find the biggest bottles of wine and beer on the camino. It isn't just that Yorkie's small, these were seriously big bottles ...


... the wine bottle must have held nearly a gallon. We couldn't take it with us though as we were carrying all our own gear: one of the things that makes a pilgrim a true pilgrim rather than simply a plastic one.

But I won't set off on that hobby horse again, so it's time to end. I hope you enjoyed travelling with us to Santiago via the blog.

We don't have a new adventure to report yet, but we'll be back soon with news of life in the Bear Cave.

Lots of love Gio, on behalf of the Camino bears xxx

Gio's Church Selection

I'm sure you won't be too surprised to hear that we did visit one or two churches along the way. The numbers weren't as great as you might think, due to the fact that, as we found on our earlier trip, the Spanish do tend to keep their churches locked. It's a great shame.

Quite soon into this trip, we walked through the big city of Leon. The Camino took us right past the entrance to this magnificent cathedral ...


The office where we went to get a stamp for our pilgrim passports was just after the rather fine screen in our next picture...


The artwork was so intricate that there was almost too much to see. I concentrated on the colours instead as I'm a simple soul, and found some of the frills too much.

In contrast, I really loved the simplicity of the church at Rabanal. It was just outside the albergue we stayed at, run by the English Co-fraternity of St James. It was very old and very peaceful. When we arrived a French pilgrim was playing his recorder inside and it sounded wonderful.


A few days later we went into a church that was open and, while the church was not really to my taste, with a bit too much gold and heavy decoration, I was more pleased that you can imagine, to see my old friend St. Roch, with his dog, again. We saw St Roch quite a lot in France but only occasionally in Spain. He is the patron saint of pilgrims and was a similar sort of figure to St Francis of Assisi, so, with me being a Franciscan bear, there is an immediate affinity.


You'll always know if you've seen St Roche as he always has his very distinctive thigh wound and the dog who saved his life by bringing him food when he was sick, at his feet.

We'll talk a bit more about the big one, Santiago Cathedral, next time.

Lots of love Gio xxx

Gio's Cross Selection

Some of you might remember that on stage 1 of our walk, I accumulated quite a collection of very different cross photos. I photographed a few more during part 2 of our walk. I like to see crosses along the way as they remind me that I am on no ordinary walk, but on one of the world's great religious pilgrimages.

Crosses by roads are good, as they speak not only to the pilgrims on the route, but also to drivers and other passers by who can't help but notice them as they go about their daily business.

My first cross was located beside the road out of the town of Astorga. I like it's simple nature and I always like crosses made of wood. I also liked the seat I had at the bottom and I found it useful to have a little map of the villages that were coming up on the way.


My next cross is a city centre one. It was located close to the centre of Leon and I liked the fact that it was there in the midst of all the traffic and hustle and bustle of the city. I think there should be more crosses, like this one, in a very different location to a church building.


My final cross was not in a town or a city, but was delightfully situated in a rural setting. It was a beautiful stone cross, in a small wood, just to the left of the camino. My guidebook told me it was very old, 17th century in fact. It was typical of many crosses in Galicia in that it had figures carved on both sides: Christ on the cross on one side, and Mary on the other.


It was a very tranquil spot so I lingered for a few moments to soak up the peace and sense of history.

Lots of love, Gio xxx

The Not So Good Bits

We don't want to dwell on the lowlights of walking the Camino too much, but there are just a few we want to get off our chest and we are sure we will feel much better for it.

1. Our biggest bugbear, locked churches. Spain was much more of a culprit than France. It really made us growl to find, time after time, locked churches, bang on one of the world's most famous pilgrimage routes. They were even locked on Sunday.


Here was all too familiar example.

And then, on the rare occasions we did get in, we found the amount of gold and ornate decoration quite off-putting ...


... or we'd sit through a service conducted entirely in Spanish, or French, with the only words spoken in English, being a warning that non Catholics were not welcome at the Communion table ... more growls.

2. Plastic Pilgrims. Our hackles really rose when we encountered able bodied 'pilgrims' not bothering to put the effort into walking, but taking regular short cuts by bus, while pretending to be walkers. It's a good job we don't know names, but the 2 hot water bottle girls will know who they are (not that they're likely to ever read this blog). It was also disappointing to find the Le Puy route in France so busy, especially with groups of daysack walkers with full vehicle support. This put pressure on the accommodation so that it was necessary to book ahead. We didn't want to have to do this, not only because of the language difficulties, but also because we wanted the freedom to take each day as it came and stop when we were ready, rather than at a place determined in advance.

3. There were some stretches in Spain that needed a bit more scenery and something to look at other than a bit of soil. We were also not too keen on the 'sendas' (paths running alongside main roads) such as this one ...


... as we much preferred to get further away from the traffic.

4. Ipods going to sleep and not waking up. We were quite reliant on our Ipods for blogging, music, games and electronic books, so it was a real disappointment to see a screen looking like this ...


... not once, but twice, once on each Ipod. As the only solution was to reconnect to the parent computer several hundred miles away, it was very frustrating, although it was good to be able to call on the hammer treatment from Fred of the Suffolk Branch.

Thankfully, we have now loaded the software fix so hopefully, when we return to Spain to finish the walk, this problem should not occur.

And finally ... there was the rather big lowlight of not being able to finish to walk this year due to our minder's stress fracture. This was a whimper, rather than a growl, as it wasn't his fault. On the positive side it means we can all look forward to some more Camino walking before too long.

Lots of love, the Camino Bears xxx

Reflections on St James and ... Caterpillars

So far, in our highlights, we've mostly talked about things which were incidental to our pilgrimage, albeit very welcome accoutrements (we do like that word!). But after all, our walk was, first and foremost, a pilgrimage, so how was the actual pilgrimage in the highlights stakes?

We've already mentioned the pleasure we had meeting fellow pilgrims and of course, had we been able to make it to Santiago this trip, arrival at Santiago cathedral would have undoubtedly been a highlight, even though, because of swine flu, we couldn't have kissed St James' feet!

We really did like all the reminders along the way that the route we were walking was more than just another 'GR' path. Because the Camino is the way of St James, and his emblem is the scallop shell, the path was frequently adorned with scallops which came in all materials, shapes and sizes. In terms of natural scallops, we thought this wall was pretty special as it was covered in scallops, many of which had pilgrim names and messages written on to them.


As for man made scallops, we really liked these metal ones which did wonders to what would otherwise have been a rather dull path, leading into the city of Logrono.


While the scallop shell was a potent reminder of St James, there was nothing quite like seeing him in the 'flesh', or should we say nuts and bolts.


This was our favourite image of him made out of old car parts: spot his exhaust pipe staff!

I (Giovanni) was lucky enough to have my own pilgrim's passport, in which I, along with my minders collected stamps from the places we stayed along the way. It was a very special moment for me when I received my first stamp from the cathedral at Le Puy.


I was so proud to be finally officially starting this great walk, which we'd been planning for years, that I had to have a picture taken with my first stamp. By the time we stopped, I had many pages of stamps, at least one for every day of our trip, and I can hardly wait for the time when we will return to Spain to complete the walk to Santiago, as we will then be able to exchange our passports for Compostellas.

We'll be back soon, to tell you a few of the disappointments we experienced along the way - there always have to be downsides. Sorry if we've gone about this the wrong way round, as we really should be ending on a positive note.

For now, at least we can end positively with a favourite picture of ours. It doesn't belong in this post and should have been included in the last one, in the food and drink highlights section, but we forgot it. We want to include it now, as we were extremely appreciative of this special camino fuel, sent all the way from England to the French town of Condom.


We will always be very grateful to Fred's Mum for the wonderful parcel of marshmallow Colin caterpillars she posted to us. You can see from our photo how much we enjoyed them.

Back soon, love from the Camino bears xxx

Our Camino Highlights

Our walk along the Camino was our trip of a liftime, and before the memories fade too much, we want to share some of the highlights with you all.

1. At the top of the list is the wonderful new friends we made. All the lovely encounters we enjoyed made the pilgrimage so much more than an ordinary walk. Despite all our cultural and language differences, our shared identity as pilgrims, gave us so much in common and broke across all the barriers.


Here is Luc from Belgium, one of our special friends, who we hope to see on one of his frequent visits to England.

2. We will always remember some of the marvellous accommodation we stayed in.

One of our favourites in France was the gite Montalibet in a small village called Lichos.


It was a lovely old stone building and was owned by some special people who invited us to use their swimming pool and sun loungers and gave us aperitifs and a superb meal. We then retired to bed on a characterful mezzanine floor.

In Spain we thought the albergue at Boadilla was rather special. We could see why it was called 'Shangrila' in Travels with my Donkey'.


The accommodation was in the grounds of some former farm buildings and many historical features had been retained including a pair of threshing sledges. The grounds were simply delightful as you can see from our pictures and our host was a charming Spaniard who was great fun.



3. We enjoyed walking through some wonderful scenery, especially in France.


We loved the alpine scery and the Aubrac plaeau which reminded us quite a lot of Derbyshire.

4. We passed through some delightful villages with some great photogenic qualities. Two of the finest were Espallion ...


... and Estaing ...


It was a shame we passed through these 2 places briefly and weren't able to stay. Of course the sunshine and the blue sky might have coloured our view.

It's becoming apparent to us that we have far too many highlights to fit into one post, so we'll break here and bring you part two soon.

Lots of love, the Camino bears xxx

Gio's Camino Crosses

Gio here, with the first of some reflections on our wonderful walk. From the moment I first heard about the Camino, I was really taken with the historic nature of the route, and thought it would be really amazing to walk the same route that has been walked by thousands of pilgrims for over a thousand years.

All along the way are many reminders that the route is walked by pilgrims with religious motives. I particularly liked all the crosses that appeared, quite frequently, along the way, and I'd like to share some of my favourites with you.

Some you simply could not miss, as they were large and prominently placed on the path.


This was one of my favourites, as its very simplicity made it all the more powerful as a symbol and I liked the fact that you couldn't ignore it as you passed by.

Other crosses were tucked away to the side of the path. Many of these were iron crosses, but I much preferred the wooden ones such as this one ...


... especially when they led the eye to a lovely pastoral scene, as this one did. The only thing I found a bit disturbing was the piles of stones that were put on, or around, the cross. I kept thinking, this is a cross not a cairn, but I read somewhere recently, that pilgrims leave stones to remember loved ones who have died. If this is the reason for the stones being left, then I think I can just about accept it.

Some of the crosses are very old. My next one, which we encountered when walking between Figeac and Cajarc, was reported in our guide book to be the oldest cross in the region, but sadly it gave no estimate of how old.


As we sat beside this cross, looking at the weathered stone, we had a real feeling that it had stood there for centuries. I really like this cross.

My last cross is a rather more modern one, and certainly not lacking in green credentials.


It is an ingenious piece of topiary and I think it makes a great statement.

I hope you have enjoyed sharing my photographic cross collection.

Lots of love Gio xxx

P.S. sorry our blog layout has gone haywire. When we've worked out why, we'll try and fix it.

The Best Laid Plans

It's been quite a while since we last posted and it's hard to believe how much has happened in just a few days. Of course, if you've been following our minders' blog you will know all there is to know.

Our walk out of Boadilla was a rather wet one. It was the first time since we started walking in September that we had set off in the rain. Fortunately the rain had raised temperatures so we didn't get cold, and our spirits were raised as we walked along an old canal, since as regular readers will know, we are big canal fans. It was sad to see a fine lock staircase no longer in use, and with lock gates at the top end only. It was quite a spectacle, but we were prised away by the promise of a nice, hot cup of coffee.

The rain continued all day, but fortunately our lunch problems were solved by a nice lady at a hostal we passed, who cooked us plates of pasta with cheese and tomato soup! Being rather wet on the outside, provided us with a good excuse to book into another private room at a hostal, at the town of Carrion de los Condes.

In the end this turned out to be a wise decision for more than the original reason of spreading out wet gear. Our male minder, who had been having some foot troubles for a while, thought we should see if a day off helped. Thanks to our hostal room, we had somewhere warm and dry, with a TV with a good sports channel, to hole up the next day, while we anxiously hoped for foot improvements. The extra day gave old friends a chance to catch up with us, and this is exactly what happened. We were very pleased to see our Belgian friend, Luc, walk in to the restaurant where we were having our pilgrims' meal, and spent a happy hour catching up on each other's news.

Unfortunately, the day off, didn't improve the bad foot, and during one of the most miserable walks of our life the next morning, (17km of the straightest, red earth Roman road, with nothing of interest on either side to view, and an icy gale blowing right into our faces) we came to the conclusion, reluctantly, that finishing the camino on this trip simply wasn't going to be wise, or possible.

At the albergue, at the grandly named village of Terradillos de los Templarios, which wasn't so grand in reality, as there wasn't so much as a bar or a shop, our minders monopolised the PC offering the internet, so we couldn't get near it to write a post. They did have important business to do though, as they were researching ways to get home and successfully booking a flight.

They did well, and the next day we had an amazing travelling day. First we all walked the 12 km from Terradillos to the next town of Sahagun. From there we caught a train to Leon, and from Leon, caught a bus for the three and a half hour ride to Santander. By this point it was gone 7.00 p.m. so we checked into a lovely 3 star hotel for a bit of pampering. You should have seen the toiletry range - it could have kept us occupied for the whole weekend!

In Santander we occupied our time before our flight back to England using the 'tusbic' scheme. This allows you to register and leave a deposit on your credit card, at which point you can release a bicycle and cycle round the city for no fee at all. You can return your bici to any of the stations round the city. We kept well clear of the traffic and mixed it with all the promenaders who were walking along the water front and the lovely sandy beaches. It was such a great scheme and should definitely be introduced in England.

So now we are back in England, rather sooner than we expected. Rest assured we will be putting the extra time to good use and hopefully embarking on another adventure soon, so watch this space. In the meantime, we will be planning to share some of our camino photos with you and hopefully will get to visit some of our many friends.

Lots of love the Camino Bears xxx

Making Good Use of All that Wind!

So here we are again, to continue from where we last left you in Burgos.

As we object to paying to enter churches, just as much as we object to them being locked all the time, we decided to wait to visit the cathedral until the pilgrims´mass at 7.30 p.m. We were quite willing to attend the mass, but would also use the opportunity to have a free look round.

We had not bargained for the spectacle that was in store for us. See our minders´blog for full details, but we ended up as three small bears in a very big ceremony, with lots of robed clergy, multiple archbishops, even a cardinal, and lots of incense swinging (or whatever you call it). We were disappointed that our Spanish was inadequate to tell us what was happening, but a switched on minder worked out that it was probably the inauguration of a new local saint, called Raphael.

The next day we had to leave at 8.00 a.m. so out we went into the cold and dark, and promptly got lost trying to find the way out of Burgos. As it was Sunday morning there weren´t too many locals to ask ´donde esta el camino?´ but fortunately a kind local spotted us, before we saw him, and put us on the right route.

Not long after Burgos we started to climb into the much talked about high meseta. It is supposed to be a very bleak and isolated crop growing area, and very monotonous, but we loved the peace and quiet, big skies and landscapes and the birds, including some scary vultures. We are also very impressed by all the wind turbines which adorn every hill top in numbers too great to count (next time we can´t sleep we will picture the wind farms and try counting the turbines). Many of them seem pleased to see us and wave their arms madly at us, so of course we wave back.

Today we are staying at at small town called Boadilla. There is a swimming pool but it was too cold to use it, even though we have lsot the chilling east wind. When we looked in at the albergue bed concentration, it was a bit depressing, so we took what the owner said was a good choice: a room in the main house. As we opted for non ensuite, it is a real bargain, and although more expensive that an albergue bed, it is still no more than the cost of a bed in a youth hostel at home, so a real bargain, especially as we get sheets and towels provided. It is so much more relaxing to have our own space to relax in. The only touble is, that just like in Travels With My Donkey, when Tim Moore discovered that a brandy was so affordable, he realised he would want one every night, the same is likely to be true with us and hostal rooms. On the plus side, we can still have a cheap pilgrim meal, and as tonight, get to take this together with all the other pilgrims - tonight again with our Slovak friend whose name is a bit complicated. We just don´t return to their dormitory with them afterwards.

We are sure we will sleep well tonight.

Lots of love, the Camino bears xxx

Our First Marathon

We hope all our readers have been avidly following our minders´blog as that will give you all our news, as, strangely enough, we do all walk together and share the same experiences.

Tonight´s quick post is coming from a very new pilgrims´ hostel, right in the centre of Burgos. It was only opened last year so is very modern, and has nicely partitioned bed areas on 7 floors. As we were early arrivals, we have beds on the first floor.

It is only a stone´s throw from the hostel to the very fine cathedral and there are lots of expensive hotels nearby, so we feel very fortunate to have accommodation for a minimum donation of €3 - we did actually put in a bit more.

The walk into Burgos was an interesting one. We started off climbing a stony sheep path up a hill, then we came down, crossed some agricultural land, then walked right round the airport perimeter fence, before walking the last 8km into the city centre through parkland beside the river. As it is Saturday, the Spaniards were out in force, walking, running or cycling, and they do seem to be taking more exercise than the average Brit.

We were pleased to arrive at lunchtime as our paws are still recovering from our marathon walk of two days ago when we unintentionally did a marathon length leg of over 40km. We had already set ourselves a challenging target, without allowing for the fact that our chosen hostel was shut. There was no other choice but to walk on for another hour to the next town. Fortunately when we got there we did find ourselves an excellent room, with a complimentary carafe of red wine which soon revived us, as did the massaging shower.

The big change over the last week has been the change in the weather. Still no rain, and clear blue skies and lots of sunshine, but there is a biting wind from the east (Siberia?) and first thing in the morning and in the evening, it gets very cold. Our wardrobe has now completely changed and all of the winter clothes we have been carrying around unused for weeks, are now becoming essential wear. As we set out yesterday morning we were surprised to see frost on the grass, and it was the same today. Possibly our Helvellyn high altitude has something to do with it. Needless to say we are now drinking more cafes con leche than San Miguel!

20 minutes on the internet machine doesn´t last long so we must now say hasta luego!

Lots of love, the Camino Bears xxx

Introducing Our Big Adventure

The time has finally come to reveal this year's big adventure to you. We've dropped a few hints over recent months that something big was in the offing - for example, us practising our Spanish in Menorca - but we haven't given too much away so far.

We can't leave you in suspense any longer as departure day is only some 10 days away. So where are we going and who's going?

Bears Unlimited is proud to be sponsoring me (George), Yorkie and Gio to walk the Camino de Santiago from Le Puy in France to Santiago in Spain. As we have generously been given 12 weeks off work, us 3 lucky bears, along with 2 minders, get to walk 736km of the Le Puy route to the Pyrenees before crossing into Spain and walking the 778 km of the traditional route, the Camino Frances, between St Jean Pied de Port and Santiago.

What an adventure! We can hardly contain our excitement. Yorkie and I are naturally going as we are the travelling bears, and Gio, being a Franciscan, is coming as our pilgrimage leader. If you recall, he came to us from Hillfield Friary.

Training for this marathon walk has been going on for quite a few months.


Here you see Personal Trainer Chelmer and his brother Curly, putting Gio through his paces. Yorkie and I should have been there too but we'd overslept that morning and missed the session.

When we saw the pictures, we thought it looked as if they'd had a lot of fun as Chelmer had designed a great assault course and he had a lot of really unusual tree shapes to work with. See what we mean?


Believe us, we might have missed this session, but Chelmer ensured we made up for it later.

Lots of love George, Yorkie & Gio xxx