Seville, Spain (October 17, 2016)
That moment when you realize it sounded like a good idea when you made the plan:
That dark, calm morning, I kissed my wife goodbye, loaded her bags, and helped her into a taxi for the Sevilla (“Seville” to us in America) airport in Seville, Spain. Since her flight was an early one, she left our hotel at 5:00 a.m. Because sunup was not until after 8:30 a.m., I went back to bed, putting off setting out on foot for Santiago de Compostela until I could see the flecha amarillas (yellow arrows) marking the path before me.
She and I had been together almost every moment for the last five weeks, as we played the tourist game in Italy and Spain. I would not see her again for another five weeks, while I trekked the Via de la Plata (VDLP) from Sevilla, in southern Spain, to Santiago de Compostela in the northwest corner of the country—1,000 kilometers (625 miles) ahead of me before a return flight home to my beloved.
Collected with MotionX-GPS
Each day in this route report lists start and end points, the distance walked (in kilometers), the time taken to walk that distance, notes about the route, a log of that day’s adventure, and costs. Also included is a screen grab of my GPS record for that day, taken from my smartphone app Strava. Please note that the Strava app only logged moving time between the start and end points of the day, and did not include lunch, coffee breaks, or my talks with people along the way. In contrast, my approximate record of the time it took to complete each day’s journey was always longer. Also included, when available, is a link to each day’s slideshow that has been uploaded to Facebook.