The Camino Ingles is an authentic pilgrimage route for English and Northern European pilgrims in the middle ages, who came by sea from their homelands to La Coruña or Ferrol, and then walked to Santiago. Santiago de Compostela is roughly 60 km from La Coruña, and 120 km from Ferrol. To gain the compostela, you must walk at least 100 km, hence the modern-day preference for Ferrol as the starting point, though there is a campaign asking Cathedral authorities to allow pilgrims starting from La Coruña to gain the compostela. [ctt template=”3″ link=”Um6X7″ via=”no” ]As of 2017, it is possible to walk 30 km in your own country, and then start on the Ingles from La Coruna.[/ctt] You must get your credencial and get it stamped for those 30 kms. So why were we doing the Camino?

What’s a Camino?
The Camino is a pilgrimage, a route that has been around for over a thousand years. Anyone who has done the Camino gets a lot of credibility that can be applied to any goal in your life. This is just the first step. I had no intentions of writing a book – I wanted to walk to achieve a health goal and to prove to myself that I could do this! And I did much more than that – the Camino Ingles also launched me on a bestselling author journey.

This is hubby and me starting out from the docks at Ferrol, with the port behind us and the first marker of the Camino Ingles in front of us. After weeks of training, and a long journey from Australia we are finally here and ready to walk. Boots on, hats on, rain gear handy, and water bottles filled, but where do we get the credencial?

At the start of the Ingles

The tourist office had run out of them, was there a mob of pilgrims ahead of us? So we got the credencial from the exquisite little Cathedral, just before the office closed for siesta. It’s always good for a bit of sheer magnificence before a 15 km trek .. and yes, we did get lost on the first day.

That’s why I created maps for the cities! Download my sketch maps.

The local authorities in Ferrol are actively promoting the Camino Ingles. Here is a great promotional video about the first few kilometres of the way through Ferrol itself.