Pilgrim's Road

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    The Way
     
    W E arrived at Vézelay on an evening in early April just as dusk was falling. Against the darkening sky the great church of La Madeleine rode the rolling plains of Burgundy like a galleon in full sail. Built to act as a magnet to draw men to it from afar, eight centuries later it had not lost its power. Tired though we were, we made straight up the hill before even considering a restorative drink or a place to stay. There was time that evening for only the briefest look at the astounding carving of the Christ in the narthex, and a glimpse of the huge arched spaces of the nave before the doors were locked for the night.
    We found a room with the sisters in the nearby convent at the top of the steep, narrow street which leads down from the church, and which in fact is not a village
    street at all, but ‘The Way’, for every inch of this hill is charged with significance and rich in legend. However, we were content to leave further explorations until the morning, for after the thirteen-hour drive from the overnight ferry we wanted nothing more than to collapse into the large lumpy bed beneath the obligatory crucifix, and were asleep by nine.
    The aged and battered 2CV known as the Red Toad — as much for its difficult but endearing nature, as for the bulbous headlamps and vaguely amphibious appearance — was parked outside the cathedral ready for my husband Peter’s early morning return to England. My bicycle, which the Red Toad had transported to the start of the journey, was locked safely (as we wrongly assumed) in the convent’s front hall, ready to set out in the opposite direction — southward to Santiago de Compostela.
    Being a compulsive traveller, the idea of making a journey excites me whatever the time of year; but as Chaucer so rightly observed, an English April is like no other season for stirring the wanderlust. With the first delicate greening of black winter branches, buds breaking free in skeletal hedgerows, and infinitely small and tender shoots bravely pushing up out of the bare cold earth, a marvellous metamorphosis begins. Skies which have been grey for months are suddenly blue, and the air has a delicious new softness, full of heady scents recalling past delights. The earth, in the process of rediscovering itself, seems to call for a similar unfolding and expanding of the human heart, and the sense of freshness and renewal everywhere makes it almost unbearable to stay indoors.
    So strong is this siren call  of the awakening year that even in the traffic-choked centres of cities like London it makes itself heard; and lucky the traveller who has the freedom to give ear to it. Seasons and weather being so variable in our northern latitudes, however, and so seldom performing quite as expected, these seductive harbingers of spring came early in March the year I fastened a scallop shell to my panniers and set out to bicycle to the ‘Field of the Star’.
    The idea of journeying along the ancient medieval pilgrim route to the shrine of St James the Apostle, patron saint of Spain, came about quite by chance. One day the morning’s post brought me a card illustrated with a reproduction of an old map showing the four main pilgrim routes leading to Santiago de Compostela. It had been sent by a friend who had selected it quite at random, I learnt subsequently, but the timing could not have been more apt. Pilgrimage was so perfectly in keeping with the burgeoning year, and as it also coincided with the discovery that I had some two months unexpectedly clear of commitments, the idea took fire at once.
    Most of my journeys seem to have come about by pure chance; a sudden enthusiasm that grew into a fully fledged ambition. Recently, however, I have begun to wonder if perhaps there isn’t some sort of pattern to my wanderings, or, at the very least, a right time for making a particular journey. I was to ponder this thought often on the Road to Compostela.
    All I knew about the St James or Jacobite pilgrimage was that Santiago was in Galicia, that mysterious Celtic region of north-western Spain, near Cape Finisterre — the end of the world — and an area I had long wanted to visit. When I looked up the route in the atlas, I found that it went through the sort of varied and rugged terrain I most enjoy, crossing several mountain ranges, including the Pyrenees. It also passed through a number of historic towns famous for their medieval treasures. In fact the whole way appeared to be