Paris-Montrouge Scribbler

  The Road to Santiago de Compostela, 2003: A Pilgrim's Diary 2. Background to the pilgrimage Spring semester, 2002-2003, I took a leave of absence from my teaching duties in the Department of Archaeology and History of Art at Bilkent University, Ankara. The book I had been working on for many years was at last finished ( Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece, and Rome ), so it was time for a break. I spent the first three months in Athens, reading in the great library of the American School of Classical Studies. I was investigating especially the history of archaeological exploration in the region of Kinet Höyük (ancient Issos), an ancient port city in southern Turkey, in the northeast corner of the Mediterranean. The site had been under excavation since 1992, and I was a member of the project team. In late April, I left Athens and Ankara and flew to Paris to begin a completely different activity: hiking the famous lat...

Today, 25 July , is the Feast of St. James (= St. Jacques, in French; Santiago, in Spanish) -- an auspicious day to begin posting my account of the pilgrimage walk to Santiago de Compostela that I undertook  21 years ago, in 2003.  I am planning 10 installments, to be posted at irregular intervals, depending on how much time it will take to revise my original trip diary and to find suitable illustrations.   The Road to Santiago de Compostela, 2003: A Pilgrim’s Diary Charles Gates 1.Preface Another account of a pilgrim’s journey to Santiago de Compostela? Do we really need this? Yes, we do. There are as many travelers to Santiago as there are stars in the sky, and each experiences and interprets this special trip in a different way. After I returned from my journey in spring, 2003, I read two accounts, and it stunned me how their take had so little in common with mine. I was hoping to get some insight into my own experiences, but instead these writers seemed so ...