~ Marino and Tiz are off ~

We left our home, family and friends in Australia not all that long ago to experience living in various countries in Europe because we could, and we didn't want to look back in the hopefully distant future thinking "If only we had travelled more ....", or similar.  In our very vague plans we thought starting off with a walk across Spain, more often referred to as El Camino Francés by those with a more religious bent than me, would be a good idea. We are both fit, have walked longish distances regularly for quite a while, well equipped and had looked at and read a lot of information about the Camino. We felt well prepared.  We were not. No-one, NO-ONE, is fully, or even close to well enough, prepared for their first attempt at the ¬800 km walk. You are better prepared after your first attempt at the the full walk, and even then the Camino has a bagful of surprises, some good and some disastrous, in store for its attempters.  The people we came across that were thwarted at ...

I'm sitting in an apartment in Santo Domingo de la Calzada drinking ice water avoiding the searing afternoon sun and finally getting around to jotting a few thoughts and stats on a very important, albeit shortened, part of a stage Tiz and I had planned to start off our hopefully long adventure. But, I'll go back a bit, briefly, to the pre-Camino part. After spending a fruitful five weeks in Hua Hin, Thailand, we set off for Paris, for three days.  We covered some of the ground we had in previous visits, walked the route of  "C'etait un Rendezvous", here is a very short clip of it , and if you are interested in the making of this iconic video go here . We spent some fun time with Duncan and Clare, whom we had previously arranged to have dinner with at L'Annexe Restaurant in Montmartre. They introduced us to a camembert called Coeur de Lion, which although relatively inexpensive and available in supermarkets, was exceptional.   We then flew to Barcelona and had ...