The Camino Made Easy: Reflections of a Parador Pilgrim: Three Walking Tours on the Way of St. James Through Spain and Portugal to Santiago D

The Camino Made Easy: Reflections of a Parador Pilgrim relates three fascinating, culturally rich journeys on the Way of St. James, or the Camino, through Spain and Portugal to Santiago de Compostela. This personal, practical, and informational story testifies to the advantages of doing the Camino on a walking tour, while offering fresh perspectives on this long-distance medieval pilgrimage route for pilgrims and tourists alike.

Olivia Pittet describes stunningly varied landscapes, including the Basque country, the Rioja wine region, and Celtic Galicia, as well as the World Heritage cities of Burgos, Le n, and Santiago, while gradually unfolding the Camino's extraordinary cultural legacy and religious history, its present-day relevance, and its enduring appeal. She recalls what it was like to walk over one hundred miles on each journey, interweaving her Chaucer-style interactions with her fellow pilgrims, her love of landscape, and her special interest as a former medievalist in the Camino's literature and legends. Olivia also interjects her own tale, tracing her unexpected spiritual journey from its initial stumbling blocks to a developing sense of pilgrimage the closer she came to Santiago, where there are as many answers waiting to be found as there are ways of walking the Camino.

Beautifully written and deeply felt, this rich fusion of pilgrimage and personal narrative, landscape and cultural legacy, literature and legend vibrantly re-creates the Camino anew.

Olivia Pittet was born in England and moved to America in 1963. She received her BA from London University and her master's degree in English and comparative literature from Columbia University. Now a freelance editor, she previously worked for many years in book publishing. Olivia is also a dedicated walker who has taken walking tours throughout Europe and North America for over twenty years, on one of which she met her present husband. This is her first book.