2019 How it began
In the fall of 2011, we had just moved from Philadelphia to Chapel Hill.
We got settled in and then headed off for a barging trip on the Canal de Midi in the south of France. Our barging route took us past Moissac on the Canal de Garonne.
We stopped at the old church and learned that it was a pilgrim church for the Camino de Santiago. (I now know it is a stop on the French Way- the Le Puy Camino.)
We even received a credential (pilgrim passport) and had it stamped with a sello or a stamp saying we had travelled as a pilgrim to this spot.
Along the canal route,we'd sometimes see pilgrims walking with their big backpacks.
Thus a seed was planted.
Fast forward to 2019. Two friends asked me to join them in an Ollie class about the Camino de Santiago, offered by John Saxon, an inveterate pilgrim. I went and we all were hooked.
We began planning a trip for 2020 and invited other friends to join us. There was much research and discussion and our group of 7 agreed to set out in late September, 2020.
We figured out an itinerary and decided to start from St Jean Pied-de-Port and walk as far as Estella, then shuttle to Bilbao and San Sebastian before heading home. We picked hotels, figured out rest days and started to make reservations and watch airline prices before booking our flights.
And then,
We began to hear rumors of a new virus. But, surely, we thought, this would be over by March and we could keep planning our trip.
But as the news worsened, we realized this would not be the year and began to cancel our reservations in late February.
By March, Spain was under a Covid lockdown. The world had changed.
