Later today we will set off on our latest pilgrim jouney.

It’s been a busy summer seeing family and friends and getting ready for the journey, which will take us to 5 countries — Spain, Hungary, Italy, Croatia and Ireland — over 6 weeks. The end of October should find us briefly back in DC before we head off to St Paul-Collegeville, Minnesota and then our winter nest in Naples,  Florida.

Summer has been richly filled with encounters with dear family and beloved friends. Thanks to my teammates where I volunteer at Naples Botanical Garden, I have started recording observations on inaturalist.com (a great app), like the butterfly pictured above. Thanks to Ed’s insistence,  we have logged over 50 miles of hiking over the last week to get legs and feet Camino-ready, providing opportunities to look and listen as we walk.

Most of our walking has been through Rock Creek Park, a National Park which runs behind our building into Maryland. It is a lovely green enclave with running water, shaded hiking trails and enough scrambling ups and downs to hold interest.

So far my left knee,  which was injured last fall and forced us to cut that walk short, has been holding up, DV  (dieu le veut, God Willing). A large supply of silicone blister patches is coming along for the first two weeks of our trip, which is planned for 2 weeks along the Camino de Santiago de Campostela Frances (The French Way).

Golf with the boys and on our own has also provided lots of walking exercise.

We will start this Camino where we had to stop last year — Estella, and walk to Carrion de Los Condes, near the Camino’s mid point. Compared to our first Camino in 2015, when we walked the whole way to Finisterre on the Atlantic, this time we will not be carrying full packs (but using Spanish Postal Service Pac Mochila luggage forwarding) and we will also be limiting our daily distances. We will also be mostly avoiding bunk bed dormitories.

Ed’s Travel Agency has been hard at work for weeks making air and hotel reservations. It’s an enormous amount of detailed work,  full of frustrations,  and much appreciated. Despite his efforts, no doubt we will be writing about unexpected occurrences that come with travel…

After 2 weeks, we plan to leave the Camino path on a bus, then fly from Bilbao to Budapest, which we’ve never visited. From Budapest we will fly to Bologna which gives access to Ravenna for a much-anticipated 4 day stay. Then we will make our way to Dubrovnik for the first time, returning to Rome (our favorite city in the world). We will travel finally to Ireland to see our lovely family in Derry, Northern Ireland,  and in Sligo in the west of the Republic, our way of honoring and remembering Ed’s brother,  Bill (1943-2022).

Closing this post with a summer highlight: Ed’s oldest brother Arthur celebrating his 95th birthday in July at the Walpole Senior center near Boston.

Will post again later.