Walking pilgrimages often retrace steps of the saints, helping to feel closer to God. If you can’t make it this year, take an armchair one instead!
Wayfarer is a highly-reviewed book, from a young woman who quit her dream job, ended a long-term relationship and headed home to North Wales, before deciding to walk the most famous pilgrimage in the world – Camino de Santiago in northern Spain.
She then almost by accident found herself walking some of Britain’s oldest pilgrim paths, ending up confronting pasta traumas, that she thought she had laid to rest.
Not a religious book, it shows how a walking pilgrimage had Phoebe revisit the feelings of losing her mother as a teenager to surviving toxic relationships, an eating disorder and depression. She reveals how nature and walking helped to heal past wounds, offering a path that she did not existed.
Another Good Book on Pilgrimages
Great Pilgrim Routes of Britain & Europe looks at 10 popular pilgrim routes on the continent. The cathedral at Santiago de Compostela now records 200,000 visitors a year, on the famed pilgrim route through France and Spain. In this book, the author visits the classic route, along with nine others.
From England’s own St Cuthbert’s Way (which winds through the holy island of Lindisfarne and across the Scottish borders) to an historic route in Germany and Via Francigena (from Italy to Switzerland).
