Loved your blog today Dad. Made me laugh and cry. Walking five hundred miles across Spain certainly provided lots to laugh about but Day twenty seven brought a few tears as well.

The only good thing that came out of the first Covid19-related lockdown, as far as Graeme Cook was concerned, was his discovering the existence of El Camino de Santiago, known as The Way, an ancient pilgrimage route from the French Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in the north west of Spain. Only recently unshackled from the world of working and for reasons he still doesn’t fully understand, he determined that this was a quest he must undertake and in the Spring of 2022 he and Mrs

C set forth with rucksacks on their backs to see if they really could walk five hundred miles to the tomb of Saint James. Spoiler alert: They made it. And not least because they had their guiding principles to, er, guide them along the way. Beer is good for you being the main one. Graeme wrote a daily blog to keep friends and family up to date with their progress. The blog also began to attract interest from further afield. Encouraged by positive feedback such as that from Susan (USA) below, Graeme decided to try his hand at writing a book about the whole adventure.

Thanks for sharing your journey. I’m now on a quest to convince my husband that we can indeed do this. All your references to beer stops is helping!

From having a near bust-up with Ernest Hemingway to meeting the invisible man, naked Germans, sophisticated Frenchmen, hunch-backed laboratory assistants, soppy knights, pizza-worshipping monks, the Camino family, the accommodation, the tears on Day twenty seven, the thrill of gazing up at Santiago Cathedral and of course a few beers along the way, it was the experience of a lifetime.

Whether you have walked The Way yourself, are planning to walk it or simply interested to learn a little more about it, this book will provide an insight like no other.

It will make you laugh. It might also make you cry.