Indeed, dear reader, your eyes have not betrayed you. I went on a pilgrimage, albeit only a small one, hence the title of this blog entry: micropilgrimage.
How does one come up with the idea of walking along the Road to Santiago if the last visit to a church has been countless years before and one is more inclined to believe in the Flying Spaghettimonster than in any other religious societies. I can tell you that: it’s part friendship and part curiosity. A friend of mine set herself the task of walking from her hometown in southern Germany to, ultimately, Santiago di Compostella. She started this year with her project and ended up walking through Switzerland and so I joined her for a weekend. It was really interesting and mainly I learned a lot about people, so hang on even if you are an atheist, agnostic, hindu, or muslim.
Checklist time:
- Roundway: nope; the goal is to ultimately arrive in Santiago to Compostella. You can walk all the 3000 km back on a different road if you have the stamina for it.
- Accessibility: For the weekend tour, I parked the car at Steg, Fischenthal, SZ and took the S-Bahn to Märstetten. In general, the Road to Santiago is a star-like net of various paths that are all ultimately joined towards the main goal. So, wherever you are in europe, it’s most likely you will hit the Road pretty soon.
- Length: approximately 40 km and 385 hm
- Strenuousness: Middle
- View: Up the Hörnli, the view is nice and on the Road you come to see a lot of chapels and churches,
- Loneliness: This is an interesting question. Of course you encounter several hikers on a weekend in Switzerland. I didn’t meet any other pilgrims, but a lot of hostel wardens who already knew we were coming and told us who was ahead and behind us.
- More information: On the Swiss part of the Road to Santiago here (in German, English and French)
- When did I go there: July 2013
Here you see a very rough sketch of the trekking route (click for large image).
On Saturday morning, really really early, I went to the supermarket to shop groceries for the trek. Being unsure if we were able to purchase food I wanted to be on the safe side. Here’s what I bought for one person in my delusions and enforcedly carried around: 2x 500 g packs of bread (yes, 1 kg of bread), 2 packs of processed cheese (those that comes in small triangular packages; it was a special sale so of course I bought 2 packs), 1 pack of cereal bars (10 pieces), 1 pack of apricots (500 g), a chicken breast sandwich with sweet and sour sauce, 3 500 ml bottles of water, 1 bottle of ginger lemonade and, as a special treat after dinner, a small glass bottle of no-name whisky (turns out they don’t sell the good ones in small take-away bottles; what a shame…) and a package of Scottish short bread.
I stuffed everything in a daypack and drove to Steg. I made it to the train station 3 minutes before the S-Bahn arrived. That means 3 minutes to change into hiking shoes, grab the daypack and the hiking poles, and buy tickets for parking and the S-Bahn – plus panick slightly because you don’t have enough change to pay the parking machine. Panick a second time because, when you try to pay the parking with the mobile phone, you don’t remember the license plate number and enter something like “this white Volvo” into the appropriate field. Plus panick a third time because you cannot actively remember locking the car. But: you are on the way now and there’s nothing to be changed now. Time to enjoy the trip!
In Märstetten, I was greeted by a beautiful sunshine weather. We easily found the Road to Santiago, which is perfectly tagged and started the journey. During lunch, a group of elderly ladies you walked a small part of the Road greeted us with an ecclesiastic song in a chapel in front of which we had lunch. My grunting about my heavy daypack made my friend suspicious and as we lifted both we found out that mine, packed for two days, was as heavy as hers, packed for 3 weeks. Uff, that’s what I call thoughtful organisation. At least we share the same burden – and we won’t starve, not in a lifetime by the amount of food I brought with me.
In a lot of churches, chapels and pilgrim lodges you can collect stamps for a special St Jacobs ID pass. You cannot take many souvenirs with you except stamps and pictures as you would have to carry all of them so my friend was really protective and proud of her pilgrim ID. And she can be, as it is the written (or stamped) prove that she walked from Ulm to Bern!
The Road goes on through fields and woods and small villages. In St. Margarethen, we found a church where several hundreds of years ago, the pilgrims seemed to have invented an early form of graffiti scribbled into the church walls. We lost our way shortly after, and a nice lady recognised us as pilgrims by the typical scallop my friend wore at her backpack and redirected us.
In Sirnach we had a sleep over at the “House of Hearts” (Haus der Herzen) with Peter and Agnes, you gave us a warm welcome, a hot shower and a huuuge amount of food. Not that we didn’t have our own and lots of it as well, but vegetable soup, spaghetti Bolognese, ice cream with hot raspberries and self-made liqueur do sound much better than stale bread and warm half-molten processed cheese; wouldn’t you agree? A propos alcohol, we excused ourselves from Agnes and Peter rather early and had a lovely sit-in in the pilgrims room. Music was played from the mobile phone and we enjoyed the cheep whisky (which was better than expected) and the short bread. Yes, I know, we already had a 3-course dinner. Short bread always fits in, I daresay.
Agnes and Peter also generously provided my with my own pilgrim ID pass (I didn’t have much say in it), Haus der Herzen stamp included so now I can start collecting. So, if I ever go on a micro- or even maxipilgrimage again, I already have the ID and some stamps. The whole house was full of Road to Santiago stuff with pictures and scallop souvenirs and all kinds of knickknacks. I am short of calling it an obsession and will settle for ‘a very serious hobby’.
Breakfast was equally great and we went back to the Road as early as half past 8. Not bad for a sunday, eh? The abbey in Fischeningen is a beautiful and huge building with a nice church. Legend has it that St Ida of Toggenburg lived in Fischingen. Her husband accused her of cheating, killed the would-be lover and threw her of the highest tower of his castle. She survived and henceforth dwelled in the surrounding woods. Later, her husband realised his mistake and begged her to come home, which she graciously refused. Years later, she died in her hermitage which was built by her husband and was buried in the church of Fischingen. Her grave has a kind of hole where weary pilgrims can put their feed in and be magically bereft of all foot sores. Turns out, it only works when you sit in the abbey. Once you start walking, the magic crackles and you have to do the ascent to the Hörnli all by yourself. Apart from Ida’s grave, the abbey has a restaurant, a souvenir shop and a pottery, which seemed all rather (touristy?) expensive. We were greeted by the few monks that still life there. They wished us well for the trip, but they did not offer us a hot beverage or something of that kind. Has the Road to Santiago become such a “pilgrim highway” that they cannot afford that kind of kindness? Or are my expectations to high? Clearly, just because you wear a scallop on your backpack shouldn’t grant you the privilege of getting free stuff, especially if you can afford it. But still, it would have been nice, especially for my friend who has been walking a bit longer than me.
Leaving the monastery behind, we have lunch at a peaceful bench (more stale bread and processed cheese) before we start our hike up Hörnli. On the way up, a hostel warden greets us, saying he lodged some fellow pilgrims and wishes us good luck on the Road. Carrying the scallop is like taking a cute puppy for a walk. It decreases the boundaries between people and you get in touch with many friendly persons.
The Hörnli isn’t too high (approx. 600 m) and neither steep and although my friend isn’t used to hiking up and down instead of straight ahead, we reach the summit in pretty good time. Green knee-high grass rocks in the wind and we just lie on the meadow and enjoy the sunday summer afternoon. Feels like holiday!
At the Hörnli restaurant, you can rent a scooter for 20 CHF and scoot down the hill. We prefered to walk though and encountered a kind of special breed of chicken and also a new type of aligned cows. Does anybody know why they keep walking in lines along the hill? I suggest because then they can eat the fresh grass to their left and right and don’t spoil it, although I haven’t seen any cow so smart yet. Normally they just trample everywhere until their pasture is a huge speck of mud and then hope to be relocated by their farmer.
Luckily, the descent from Hörnli immediately stops not only at the train station in Steg, but at my car. My locked car without a parking violation ticket – hurray! And never has it felt so good to get rid of the hiking shoes. My friend went on to spent the night sleeping on a straw pellet. Later on, she would have made her way to my place near Lucerne where I would also draw my very own pilgrimage stamp into her ID card, Alpen panorama included.
All in all, I spent a lovely weekend enjoying good company and new insights into the unique world of Road to Santiago addicts. I also realised that I most certainly liked the second day better, with less chapels and roads and more height meters, nature and views. I guess a pilgrimage along the John Muir Trail would suit mr much better! Has anyone of you done the Trail (or part of it)?
Spa and Travel 