William Edwards, Henry Trowbridge, James Lombard went to Downside Abbey School in Somerset together, leaving in 2002, while James’ brother Oliver has just taken his AS Levels there. They decided to raise money for the Full Circle Fund after Henry’s father was treated for the condition at the Ruth Myles Wing in his final months. A good friend of theirs has also been treated on the ward over the course of the last year. To raise money they cycled 500 miles across northern Spain from Pamplona to Santiago de Compostela, an ancient centre of pilgrimage, with what follows being an account of their journey.

Setting off from Pamplona on a dark and chilly August morning at the crack of dawn, the training I’d done in the sunny Mendip Hills in preparation for our pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela suddenly seemed a very distant memory. And within five minutes, we were lost. After some deliberation, James and Oliver Lombard, Henry Trowbridge and I found the right direction, and set off again, only to be stopped this time by a stray bungee rope getting caught in my gears. Asking James for the lube – which is apparently how cyclists refer to bike oil – he passed me the Sudocrem, ideal for soothing the saddle-sore, but not quite so good on bicycle chains and gears.

Not really the start we were hoping for, then, but what were we to expect? The four of us had approached our 500 mile expedition with a typical Downside outlook, the sort of mindset that in years past has got British explorers to the top of Himalayan peaks in little more than their old school P.E. kit and a sweater knitted for them by a benevolent great-aunt. I was rather hoping to use my father’s old racing bike, (“It was top of the range in its day!”) and Henry was pretty sure that a couple of laps around Richmond Park would prepare him for our expedition.

It was in fact Henry who set us on our way to Spain in the first place. While I had suggested to him in an off-hand way that we really ought to do the Camino at some point, it was Henry who proposed summer 2006. The four of us had several reasons for wanting to make the pilgrimage; of course as O.G.s (old boys of Downside) we were all keen to undertake one of the most well-preserved great Catholic pilgrimages in existence. However, we also wanted to make the pilgrimage for charity, and one charity in particular seemed to stand out: the Full Circle Fund for Leukaemia. Our group had two personal connections with the charity. Henry’s late father, Barry Trowbridge, was cared for in the Ruth Myles wing when he was being treated for leukaemia two years ago, while George Norton, who was Head Boy when Henry, James and I were at Downside, has recently been receiving care in the ward for leukaemia.

Of course the time between our decision to do the Camino for charity until the morning we set off was itself a long journey. Downside was very generous in allowing us to use Prize Day as our first fundraising opportunity, and after that we contacted everyone we knew, from friends and acquaintances to Tony Blair and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor. Sir Rocco Forte, O.G. and Sir Donald Gosling made particularly generous donations.

The Camino itself is an ancient route of pilgrimage, with its origins being a rather murky mix of history and legend. The legend has it that St James the Great, one of Jesus’ disciples, was evangelist to Spain in his lifetime before returning to Jerusalem where he was executed by the Roman authorities in about AD 44. His remains were transported back to Spain, where for around 800 years their whereabouts were forgotten. In the 9th century they were apparently discovered by a hermit who was guided to the site by a star (hence the name Campus-Stella, ‘Field of the Star’). He informed the local bishop, and the king of the Christian territory in Spain decreed a chapel be built on the site.

Unfortunately much of the legend rests on rather shaky evidence, either dating from much later than the events described or having been written by those with a vested interest in promoting the pilgrimage. St James also conveniently filled the position of Christian military hero in a time when the Christians were in great need of heroes against the Moors who controlled most of the Iberian peninsular. However, the pilgrimage came to rank in importance alongside Jerusalem and Rome in an age when pilgrimage was an essential part of the penitential process.

For our sins we aimed to complete around 65 km each day. After day one, we thought we may have been a little optimistic on this one. Worn out after our 40 miles, we finally approached the village where we had planned to stay at around three in the afternoon, still in blazing sunshine, only to find it was perched on top of a hill. We made it up the hill and staggered through the door of the first refugio we came across.
“ Usually I don’t allow cyclists to book in until after four o’clock,” said the friendly Dutchman who ran the hostel; “but for you four… I think I make an exception, no?” Obviously we were looking somewhat bedraggled.

The refugios in northern Spain are a fantastic facility for the modern pilgrim. As walking pilgrims can spend as much as six weeks reaching Compostela, even Youth Hostel prices would be too expensive for most young people to pay for every night. Refugios usually cost less than €5, and many simply ask for a voluntary donation. Of course the standard varies greatly, and none of them approach the luxurious. On the first night at Villamayor de Montjardin, there was one room sleeping around 20 of us, with mattresses arranged on what was little more than a shelf around the room’s edge. The Hilton it was not, but at that point we would have happily slept on a rock. Over the course of the journey we found that often the standard of accommodation was less important than the overall atmosphere of each refugio, and that the more lavish were often less enjoyable than the basic-but-friendly.

“You are fit young men,” our Dutch host told us, somewhat to our disbelief, as we set off the next day. “In a few days, you will be covering 80 to 100 kilometres each day.” Although he himself had been a cyclist in his younger days, at that point none of us were inclined to believe him. However, from there the terrain levelled out into the meseta for a time, and on these flatlands we covered 75km and 90km during the next two days. Our Dutch friend had been right. We spent only a lunch break in Logroño, with its impressive Baroque cathedral, and pushed on further than we had planned for the night.

The following day started badly. Henry, who had earned the nickname Captain Slow by this point, was finding it difficult to get going, and we became stuck on a busy stretch of main road; although we were mainly sticking to the same roads as those walking the Camino, there were points when our road-bikes weren’t suitable for the rough walkers’ track. Somehow though, over breakfast, everything seemed to sort itself out. We agreed to try and aim for an average speed of 10mph, so that those at the back wouldn’t get left behind but at the same time we would know that in one hour we would achieve a decent distance. This we were able to do, and in fact by the end of the day, despite some steep ascents we had managed to get a whole day ahead of our original schedule. It was perhaps on days like this that lesser friendships would have started to fray around the edges, but the way we in which we worked together, meant that by the end of the day we felt we had really succeeded against the odds.

As we were now ahead of schedule, we were able to spend a day off in Burgos. The cathedral is the most impressive feature of the city, and is one of the most spectacular churches I have seen. Its towers of white limestone, gleaming in the sunlight, are made up of a lattice of stonework. It is reminiscent of Gaudi’s famous Barcelona basilica, but is much more strongly rooted in the Gothic whilst maintaining a lightness of touch sometimes lacking in the style. We enjoyed a barbeque in the park which surrounded our refugio, and James’ ‘Gentleman Trecker’ bicycle made the first of its numerous visits to a bicycle repair shop.

Over the next couple of days we resumed our blistering pace through Carrion de los Condes – where the Spanish Christians reputedly used to have to hand over 100 virgins a year to their Muslim overlords – and Sahagun. It was here that James and I found fame, to an extent. We were wondering back from the ruins of the town’s former monastery while Henry and Ollie were inspecting the local Irish pub (apparently Guinness in the Spanish heat is not to be recommended), when we were approached by two Spaniards who asked if we would like to be interviewed for a documentary on the Camino. We agreed to the idea, and trustingly jumped in their car to go back to our refugio, where they filmed us chatting about our experiences for a good 20 minutes. Their website currently shows a previous short documentary and hopefully will one day show one including us – keep an eye on www.freehighway.org.

We were fast approaching Leon, where we planned to spend a day off in preparation for the Montes de Leon. Again the cathedral was the focal point of the city. It contains 1.8 square kilometres of stained glass, apparently some of the finest in Europe.

The following morning we arrived in Astorga, about 30 miles from Leon, at 9.30am, just in time for second breakfast. As we were cycling so far and getting up so early every day we usually managed four or five meals per day to keep energy levels up. I gained a reputation for eating anything we came across, including the contents of sugar sachets and plastic mini-pots of jam, as part of an ‘every little helps’ strategy, while in true ‘Brits abroad’ fashion we were in a constant search for bacon and eggs for breakfast. A brilliant invention is the Pilgrims’ Menu which we usually enjoyed each evening. Restaurants on the Camino offer three solid courses and wine for around €8. This was just what we needed at the end of hard days.

We certainly needed all the energy we could get when we reached the mountains. Astorga, with its cathedral and original bishop’s palace designed by Gaudi, marked the end of the meseta. The road over the first mountain range we had to cross went higher than that over the Pyrenees, reaching 1,504m. (For comparison, Ben Nevis measures 1,344m). At the highest point is the Cruz de Ferro (Iron Cross), surrounded by a huge pile of stones. Each of these was brought by a pilgrim from his home, and represents the sins which pilgrims leave behind on the Camino.

Coming down the side of the mountains was fun but dangerous – a number of cyclists had recently lost their lives on these roads, with their steep descents followed by tight hairpin turns. It was good to see Captain Slow leading the way for once though. James’ bike tried to do him in at this point too; when we reached the bottom, a spoke suddenly detached itself from the wheel-hub of The Gentleman Trecker and lodged itself in his chain. If that had happened on the way down the mountain, it could have all gone horribly wrong.

It turned out the first range of mountains had only been a practice run for the second. After spending the night in a particularly eccentric refugio, held together by duck boarding, plastic sheeting and sheer force of character in a beautiful spot in Villafranca del Bierzo, we set off uphill again. This time the mountains were less high (‘only’ 1,300m), but we started our climb from a lower altitude and the ascent was steeper. As the mist closed in and the temperature dropped it was clear that we really were in the mountains. The climb up this time was a real challenge, but we struggled on. Thankfully soon after Pedrafita do Cebreiro we emerged from the clouds into bright sunlight again, and we made our way to the highest point, where we had lunch and beers to celebrate.

But there was still a long way to go. When we reached our planned stopping place after 50 miles of cycling over the mountains, we found that all five refugios were full. And all the hostels, and all the hotels. This was due in large part to all the ‘day-trippers’ who do only the last couple of hundred kilometres, after the mountains, to say they’ve done the Camino. Thankfully, or so we thought, a hotel receptionist managed to find us a room a little out of town. We just about made the 8km, only to be told that, no, they had not received a reservation, no, they didn’t have any rooms, and the woman we had spoken to on the phone earlier had mysteriously disappeared. It was a rather up-market hotel, and it was clear that, having seen us stumbling to the reception desk in full cycling attire, they thought we were not up to the standards of the establishment. They were adamant, and there was little we could do. After complaining loudly for a while in our best French (our shared language with the manager), we headed back to the town in the lowest of spirits. Luckily though, while in a last-ditch attempt to find the town’s camping ground (despite not having a tent), we found a sports hall which was being used as an overflow for pilgrims. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was somewhere to sleep.

After that we had been informed that it was downhill all the way to Santiago. However, this proved to have been a lie. We went through some of the most arduous terrain, apart from the mountains, that we had come across all pilgrimage, but of course by this point we were cycling machines and were phased by nothing! Not wanting to make the same mistake twice, we had checked in to our hostel the next day by 11am to be sure of a place.

And so we had made it to the final day of our pilgrimage. We planned to set off at around 8am, rather a lie-in by pilgrim standards, as we knew that we could still make Santiago by lunchtime. Unfortunately when we got up not only had all the other pilgrims already left, but so had the refugio staff, and they had the key to the bicycle shed. Fortunately a Spanish man was in the same predicament, and somehow he managed to telephone the owner to get her to release our bikes.

This proved to be the last hitch of the pilgrimage. We covered the 45 miles to Santiago by lunchtime, despite starting out late. The last hill before Santiago is called Monte del Gozo, ‘Mount Joy’, and I can see why. I’ll never forget the feeling as we cycled past the sign announcing that we were in the city at last. We all just started cheering and shouting. We had made it.

We were met in front of the Cathedral by the rest of the Lombard family, who had very kindly transported us to Pamplona and had been on-hand in Biarritz in case we had faced any disasters on the way. They treated us to a fantastic celebratory lunch, and we queued to get our Compostela certificates from the cathedral authorities, which involved showing our refugio log-books full of stamps all the way from Pamplona.

The Old City of Santiago de Compostela is itself a World Heritage Site, and walking down its narrow, car-less streets feels rather like stepping back in time. We made it to the daily Pilgrims’ Mass, celebrated by the Archbishop as it was the Feast of the Assumption. The cathedral itself is an amazing building. Made up of styles from the Romanesque to the Baroque, it gives the impression that it has grown organically from the surrounding hills over the millennia, a feeling reinforced by the presence of the lichen and tufts of grass which populate the upper reaches of the façade. The bones of the building are Romanesque, dating to 1047. This stratum includes most of the interior and the renowned Portico de la Gloria, a carved door containing hundreds of figures surrounding St James, through which pilgrims enter the cathedral. On top of the Romanesque skeleton have grown numerous elaborately decorated side-chapels and the almost ridiculously ostentatious altarpiece over the remains of the saint. On the outside the most obvious addition is the magnificent Baroque façade, added in the C18th.

We spent several days in Santiago. For me, the sense of achievement struck when I queued for over an hour to hug the statue of the Saint behind the altar, a pilgrim tradition for hundreds of years. Another tradition is to touch the Portico de la Gloria, in which a hand-shaped mark has been worn by the many pilgrims entering the cathedral over the centuries.

The experience of doing the Camino is one that will stay with us for the rest of our lives, as it contained physical, emotional and spiritual challenges and rewards. Our journey also served to exemplify the bonds of friendship made through Downside, not just between the four of us but with the greater Downside community as well, including the Monastery and School and the ‘Downside Diaspora’ of Old Gregorians, We hope that the money we raised will be able to make some small difference to those suffering from leukaemia at St George’s, and would like to thank all those who have sponsored and supported us, particularly Suzanne Ruggles of the Full Circle Fund without whom none of this would have been possible.

William Edwards
September 2006
Also on behalf of Henry Trowbridge, James Lombard and Oliver Lombard