Little Green Tracs

Camino de Santiago and the Via Francigena – A few years later

It has been just over four years since we walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain. In that year, 114,377 walked or biked the entire network of Camino trails to Santiago, (nearly 100,000 along the famous camino frances route) and received their Compostela.  Another estimated 400,000 to 500,000 also traveled sections of the way but did not arrive in Santiago or they did not receive their Compostela.

The number of people traveling the Camino continues to rise steadily. Last year in 2010, being a Holy Year, saw 272,135 pilgrims arrive in Santiago.  There is no indication of the number of people that just simply walked or biked a section of the path but did not received their Compostela but a rough guess is that nearly one million did some or all of the Camino last year.

An interesting statistic is that most of the pilgrims are Spanish; nearly 70% - followed a smaller group of Germans, Italians and French. North Americans make up a very small percentage of those do the Camino

Another interesting statistic is that approximately 25% only walk the last 100 km into Santiago. Another 50% or so start somewhere in between Santiago and France for example. Very start in places like St Jean P. Port or Roncesvalles.

This year, the numbers have dropped but by early indications, 2011 will see approximately 180,000 pilgrims arrive in Santiago via the Camino, a 50 increase in just four short years!

With the movie, The Way released this year, staring Martin Sheen and produced by Emilio Estevez, one can only assume the number of people wanting to walk the Camino will explode in numbers!


/>Meanwhile in Italy Europe’s other great pilgrim trail the Via Francigena quietly grows in popularity. There isn’t the same level of official records kept as you see in Santiago Spain, but in 2008 when we walked the Via Francigena, an estimated 500 people arrived in Rome and received their Testimonium. More interesting was that only 1,000 people for the entire decade prior to 2008 had arrived in Rome. Therefore, you might conclude 2008 was a banner year for the Via Francigena!

Further, in 2010, some estimate that the number of pilgrims arriving in Rome has risen to nearly 1,000 people. And others estimate that maybe another 1,000 walked some section of the Via Francigena but did not arrive in Rome; an increase of 100 - 200% in just two short years!

However, these numbers are still less that those that traveled the Camino in Portugal, the Camino Norte, the Via de la Plata and Camino Primitivo in Spain in 2010. It is even less than those that walked the Le Puy route in France, the Via Jacobi in Switzerland and maybe the Jakobsweg in Austria and a probably a number of less known trails in Germany. 

Nevertheless, it is impressive in many ways.

Still, like the Camino in Spain, the majority of people traveling the Via Francigena are Italians and most travel that last 100 plus kilometers into Rome through Lazio. Only dozens of people walk the entire distance through Italy.

The Via Francigena in Italy in many ways is and remains today, an elusive, barely discovered, almost secretive trail.

Viareggio Carnival

If you are looking for a bit of fun check out the Viareggio Carnival. The Carnevale di Viareggio or Viareggio Carnival, this year is celebrating 138 years of life and activity, a long-established European tradition of Carnival festivals, and one of the best-known events in Italy.

As a popular tourist event, it attracts every year more than one million spectators gathering to attend the magic of the Carnival.

 

For 2011, along with carnival celebrations throughout the city, there will be five carnival masked parades planned for February 20th, 27th and March 6th, 8th and 13th. The parades take place in a ring circuit, two kilometers long, on the seaside avenues of Viareggio, also known as La Passeggiata. The parades include folk bands and performers with some of the most original masks, offering excitement, culture and tradition in a program of entertainment and fun for children and adults.

Of special interest are the giant, symbolic papier-mâché floats - the biggest ones weighing about forty tones each  - built in the old methods and knowledge dating back to the ancient ‘trionfi’ (war-victory feastings) of the Renaissance, that adhere to the building techniques of the big sailing ships, a pride of Viareggio’s traditions.

These travelling theatres, the papier-mâché floats, are the product of the unequalled creativity, of the extraordinary sculpture and painting talent and skill of Viareggio ‘magicians’, an example of this popular art whose language has spread all over the world.

Viareggio is not far from the Via Francigena and easy to reach from cities like Lucca.

For more information please visit: http://www.viareggio.ilcarnevale.com/

Cammino di Marcella

In the evening on April 13 1997, a tragic car accident occurred along an A26 motorway tunnel near Roussillon, Italy.

Marcella only eight years old at the time, was thrown from the car and fell 28 meters from the viaduct to the valley below. As rescue workers struggled in the darkness to find Marcella, her mother and driver of the car, Anna Rastello, made a vow. If her daughter were found alive, Anna would walk to Lourdes. Soon after, rescue workers found Marcella alive, and immediately began treatment. Unfortunately, Marcella had suffered serious injuries leaving her confined to a wheel chair for the rest of her life.

Thus began the journey of acceptance of a disability of a child, a member of one’s family, while at the same time learning to understand the meaning of the “disability of objectivity” and the “subjectivity of disability.”

Now 14 years, on March 8 2011, on International Women's Day, Anna will fulfill her vow, and undertake this journey. She will start in Roussillon, the site of the accident, and walk to Lourdes, France to arrive May 4, 2011, 53 days later, a distance of approximately 1,300 kilometers.

Anna will travel the entire route on foot, to symbolize that, first the family, and then society must accept the disability of others, without creating additional barriers (mental, psychological, physical and architectural) thus forcing the bearer of a disability in endue a more serious burden of their handicap. The purpose of her walk is to bring attention to the continued struggles that people face while disabled.

To learn more, please visit: http://www.movimentolento.it/it/page/camminomarcella/