Part 17: Pilgrims in Paris

What does it take to become a Camino pilgrim? A divorce? A job loss? Ennui? People of all ages and persuasions pack their trekking poles and alight in France or Spain or Portugal for their personal 500-600 mile adventure, and many have no idea why until they arrive in...

Part 16: Gato Love Conquers All

Where’s my kitty? I opened the door to our spa-hotel room and knew at once things weren’t right. There, on the four-poster bed, lay the maid. The bedclothes rumpled, the vacuum idle, Mademoiselle with a cry of surprise leapt up in shame to see us. “Oh, pardon, pardon,...

Part 15: Pilgrims at the Spa

Australian film director Bill Bennett was walking the Camino for reasons he could not fathom. “I had no idea why I was doing it,” he notes in The Way, My Way, his after-action report debriefing the 30-plus days he and his companion, the “Triumvirate of Pain” (knee,...

Part 14: From Chenonceau to Leonardo

We’re standing in the 16th century palace spanning the river Cher, studying Sauvage’s Portrait of Catherine de Medici in the former bedchamber of Diane de Poitiers, who was King Henry II’s favorite mistress during his marriage to Queen Catherine. Château de Chenonceau...

Part 13: A Loire Valley Folly

“Camino, look! Maybe you can meet Puss in Boots here!” Karen, kitty, and I pulled into the gravel drive of the Château de Perreux, the grand, imposing hotel that resembled exactly the kind of palace where Puss, an orange ragamuffin like Camino, held court after his...

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