Walk the Camino

with Ralph Dobbertin

What 

I will be walking 8oo km from April 11 to May 18, 2023. The path starts in France and goes across the north of Spain to Santiago the burial place of Saint James. It is commonly referred to as a pilgrimage but I walk it as an older man just trying to get it done and see, for me, a new part of the world.

My biggest concern is blisters on my feet, but I go prepared.

This will be my version of an epic walk…

Take a look at my blog posts (below) as they get made hopefully daily. As an added bonus you may occasionally get a post by Rick my brother in law who will be joining me for parts of the hike…Only parts as he will be focussing on the Camino Norte while I focus on Camino Frances.

History: What is the Camino

From Wikipedia

Some Pictures from Google

Interesting Links to Help you Understand the Camino

Zimmers Camino

From Stingy Nomads

Nice Helpful Video

The Fast Hiker

The Fast Hiker is a great old guy, like me, but from Sweden. He has basically made a video of many Camino hikes…so if you want 10 hours of footstep by footstep…he’s your guy

Why

I’ve included pictures of my kids, grandkids, mother, father, niece, nephews, grand niece and grand nephew. I even included a shot of my neighbour’s (Bill & Mary) land, for kindly clearing a trail and letting me train on it.

My growing family inspired me to take on this challenge and hopefully the hike will inspire them to take on some stretch goals in their own lives. I’m not going to Mars, like Elon, and many people hike the camino, but it is not entirely insignificant either.  

I’m sure there will be a few days, when I’m asking myself while hiking, why on earth I’m doing this crazy thing. Well: it’s for them.  One step more…Buen Camino.

Wish me luck.

Days to go till I start

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Days to go till I finish

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Read the 4 Latest Posts

Click on the thumbnail picture or blog post title to see full images and  write up.
Or press the button below to go to the blog page to see all posts
Todays walk

Todays walk

Once again I’ll be passing through many quite beautiful villages. This morning I hope to get a picture of the actual Puenta (bridge) in la Reina as well. I think there are some nice old churches coming up. Re the bridge: it’s a quite perfectly preserved Roman bridge....

25 km to Puenta de Reina.

Beautiful walk in great weather. It occurred to me today that the world hikes this trail. Every color and every religion and every nationality. And everyone gets along and is so happy to connect. The story that we have that connects us all is that we Camino. Pictures...

Today was a normal day

Today was a normal day

Normal people taking a walk in normal weather without angry meteorological blasts. Met up with brother in law Rick in Pamplona. It’s quite a nice city with medieval walls, several beautiful parks and lots of places to eat pinxchos. Not to mention the running of the...

30km walk today.

30km walk today.

We walked longer because the town we were aiming for was fully booked. So we have a 6km shorter walk tomorrow to Pamploma. Pouring rain again this morning. I was a little grumpy. I told myself to get over it. But by the afternoon we had sunshine. Still we had some...

Google Earth

This is a Google Earth link to Saint Jean Pied de Port.

I start in Saint Jean ( France) up through the Pyrennes mountains via the Napoleonic Route into Roncesvalles (Spain). This is the hardest day of the walk (27km uphill)…ie the first day.

If you click on this link it will open you up to my starting location ( or prompt you to install Google earth) and you can move around the area as you wish to follow along. I’ll try to post my locations daily. This will give you quite a good sense of what the places I visit are like.

Watch a Google Earth Fly Over of the Camino Frances

Copy and paste the link below into your browser…for some reason the maker doesn’t want this video launched from other web sites.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol0xqFsuYU0

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