Don Thomas

Finding Santiago Don Thomas

Finding Santiago is a compendium of short stories about and from the Camino de Santiago. The Camino is a more than 1,200 year-old pilgrimage with its roots in early Christian fervor. Over the centuries, interest has grown in peacetime, then ebbed with plague, war, and economic conditions. Presently, the Camino de Santiago is enjoying a renaissance. Each year, hundreds of thousands of people make the journey, following paths and routes that date back hundreds of years. The author has walked six Caminos over several routes, to date, and has also worked each year since 2014, as a volunteer at the office that receives pilgrims at Santiago de Compostela in the Spanish province of Galicia in northwest Spain. This is where all the Camino routes terminate. The reason is simple. The remains of the Apostle Saint James the Greater are interred here. For pilgrims with religious intent, this is enough motivation for the journey. For others, it is the expanses of northern Spain that call out; the history, architecture, culture, and the wonderful people. The journey can take as little as a week, or several months. People from most every country, of all religions, or no religion, of all nationalities and political persuasions, races, colors, languages and cultures share in a common effort and goal, to arrive at Santiago de Compostela. The stories in this book are intended to entertain, inform and perhaps motivate. There are many, various books written about the Camino de Santiago. Finding Santiago is different, as it easily accompanies any other book you may have written about this subject. It contains stories personally experienced by the author, or which occurred while he was on a Camino journey. Don Thomas asks you to come along and follow in his experiences.