Our Pilgrimages

Since spring 2003 we have walked several pilgrimages, both alone and together. And we are beginning a new one in January 2009. This page introduces you to where we have been and where we are going in addition to our writings about our pilgrimages.

Many go on a pilgrimage in a car, plane, or train, while others go on a bicycle or on foot. We are foot pilgrims. We like to go on foot both because we just like to walk and because we enjoy literally following in the footsteps of the pilgrims of the middle ages. We like to feel the world pass under us one step at a time.

The walk is the destination. As pilgrim's our destination is just as much our hearts, souls, minds, bodies, and spirits as it is a place on the surface of the earth. In fact, this is the real goal of any pilgrimage: to gain knowledge of and feeling for oneself and everything around. The city or shrine named as the destination is only a convenient goal to keep one walking, experiencing, listening, thinking, and feeling, to keep one receiving the grace and gifts that pour into one when s/he walks with an open heart, mind, soul, and spirit.

With this in mind, we have to realize that all life is a pilgrimage. This page and the pages it points you to are about a few smaller pilgrimages in the pilgrimage of our lives.

Our past pilgrimages

This map illustrates the pilgrimages we walked in Europe between 2003 and 2007. You can read what we have written here about each of the routes by clicking on that route in the map or on the list below the map.

Our pilgrimage walks.
Click on a route to read more about it.
(I scanned this map from the Spanish pilgrim's credential.)

In summary:

1. Camino de Santiago - Petra and I walked this route separately where we met each other in spring 2003. I walked from Roncesvalles on the Spanish border while Petra walked all the way from Constance, Germany. We walked parts of it together in fall 2003 and then again in summer 2004 from Santiago back toward Europe.
2. Via de la Plata - We walked this route together in spring of 2005. I have never written anything about it on this site. I began but never finished it. In the future? The written outcome of this walk was Walking Life: Meditations on the Pilgrimage of Life, a book of meditations on life's pilgrimage illustrated with photos from our pilgrimage walks. Now in mid-2009 I have finally added at least an an itinerary of the stops of that walk.
3. Rome pilgrimage - We walked this route in three phases between August 2006 and February 2007. In addition to the extensive writings in this site, I have written Germany to Rome in 64 Days: Our Pilgrimage, a comprehensive book chronicaling this walk to Rome from our front door in Germany.

Our latest pilgrimage

We are Walking East from our front door in California, from the Pacific to the Atlantic. After taking a boat across the Atlantic we'll continue from Portugal to Jerusalem. We expect to be walking around nine months across the U.S. and a similar time across Europe and on into Asia. We have an extensive web log at WalkingEast.com and several supporting pages headed up by Walking East: California to Jerusalem.

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