DAY 0 Leuven-Charleroi -Carcassonne VIA Augusta to SAGUNTO
- Magda Kirsch
- Apr 18
- 3 min read
The 4th Camino walk for our Rinus Pinifonds starts today and has a special character. The intention is to follow two of the pilgrim routes that lead from the South of Spain to Santiago de Compostela. On the one hand, the Camino Mozarabe is cycled all the way from Almeria to Mérida. On the other hand, the Via de la Plata is followed from Mérida to Santiago de Compostela. To reach the South of Spain, I follow the Via Augusta as closely as possible, one of the great old Roman military roads (1500 km in total) for 11 days: one day by car from the French border to Sagunto and from Sagunto I cycle in 10 days to Almeria, the beginning of the Camino Mozarabe.
On the plane to Carcassonne I sit next to a French-speaking Belgian who opened a large book about the important religious sites of the world at the start of the flight. I saw that the book was open on Santiago de Compostela. I dared to ask him if he was also going to Santiago. He, Pascal Collard, has just retired as a train conductor and is going to visit a friend in Carcassonne. He is very interested in places with a religious significance and he hopes to go to Santiago one day. When we get off, we wish each other the best.
From Carcassonne, Peter takes me and my bike with his van 600 km further along the west coast of Spain on the Via Augusta to Sagunto.
As in the past three years, I will not be going alone. Bruno will be cycling with me for the entire Camino Mozarabe from Almeria to Merida. What is new is that Bernadette, a former colleague of Magda, will also be cycling with me for ten days (500 km) from Salamanca to Santiago de Compostela. Bernadette and Ward, her husband, have written to their friends/family and invited them to also support the Rinus Pinifonds, for which we are very grateful.
Every year Rientje comes with me of course. This year I have a small porcelain angel with a bit of his ashes. Moses has prepared this with great care and sealed it well, so that nothing can go wrong. I feel even more connected to him.
Magda has worked hard the past few days to get all the lodgings sorted for the next 40 days and almost everything is OK. We sleep in albergues, hostals, flats or cheap hotels where she was able to book with the possibility (with or without payment) to cancel up to a few days before the stay. A few nights we also sleep in real pilgrim albergues (with large rooms for men or women) where the pilgrim cannot book in advance and there you have to hope to find a bed.
Of course, I undertake every pilgrimage on the one hand for our Rientje who we cannot forget and for his dad and mom, brothers and sister and many others who will never be able to cope with his loss. On the other hand, I also undertake these journeys for others who are having a hard time as a result of a loss, such as Ignace and Annie who lost their two children in a good year; others are having a hard time as a result of illness: this year we are thinking especially of Luc, the former director of ECHO KHleuven (now UCLL), of our Parisian friend Francine, of our friend Philippe from Nancy or of our friend Geert who is still working hard on his recovery after a thrombosis. We pull ourselves up by their courage and perseverance.
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