To be a modern pilgrim: ... Europe's great pilgrimage routes.

For over a thousand years, pilgrims have travelled through France and Spain to the final resting place of St James the Apostle in Santiago de Compostella.

Modern pilgrims come in two types. One dresses in lycra, wears irridescent sunglasses, has a range of ultra-light travel accessories and makes the pilgrimage, fast, on a mountain bike. The other is unkempt, wears old shorts, a battered sunhat and dries his spare socks by hanging them on his backpack. My companion and I fell, squarely, into the latter category.

One summer afternoon in London we spread a map of Spain on the floor and made a brief calculation. Ian would take 65 days to walk from Le Puy in France to Santiago de Compostella in Spain. I could join him for ten days. After 55 days he should have reached Ponferrada, so we would meet there--at noon on October 11th, 1995.

I was late. Currency problems, language problems, a flawed understanding of Spanish public transport.... Ian, having walked 850 miles to the rendez-vous, was on time. We set off into the arcadian hills. We drank cafe con leche in mediaeval villages and lunched on salami, cheese and olives. We took siestas in almond orchards, laughed, prayed and in fact aspired to be pilgrims. That's where the rub started. For pilgrimage, it seems, is not pretty. Amidst the footfalls down the paths of time are the cries of anguish, the sickness, injuries and deaths en route, the robberies, the penance, the mortification....

Scattered along the Way of St James, at fairly convenient intervals, are refugios, where pilgrims can rest their aching limbs, attend to their blisters and enquire of each other why they are on the route in the first place. `The exercise... the scenery... the beautiful churches... the sense of history... because it's a cheap holiday' are the common answers. The explicit spiritual answer from a modern pilgrim is rare, but it does seem that the process of undertaking a long journey, whose destination has a religious significance, works its own magic on life's inner journey. Anyway, something happened to me.

On arrival I learnt there was too much in my backpack--you don't carry spare clothes up a mountain if you don't have to. Refugio after refugio revealed material possessions discarded by previous pilgrims. Life on the road forces a focus on essentials; perhaps it can even reveal something about the essence of life itself.

As the first days passed, I realized how unprepared I was. `Anybody can walk 15 miles a day, but can you walk 15 the day after, and the day after, and the day after that?' the guidebook asked. I'd skim-read the question in London, and forgotten about it.

Sudden transitions from city office to open road are not unusual for modern pilgrims, and nor is accompanying inflammation of the ligaments. On the fifth day my right knee started to hurt. By the eighth I was bandaged, hobbling and obliged to pause every few hours to spray my knees with anti-inflammatory chemicals.

While Ian slowed down for the invalid, other pilgrims steamed past. Eventually, it seemed I'd have to stop walking altogether in order to let the inflammation subside. It wasn't a conclusion that rested easily with my pride. `What'll everybody think back home if Ian's done 1,000 miles and I gave up after 100!?'

Anyway, one morning after breakfast, Ian strode on while I went back to sleep in a meadow. After half a day of rest both my knees were still burning, and I yielded to the realization that I'd have to take a bus.

Bus-stops in small Spanish towns are often indistinguishable from bars. I ordered a cup of tea and a croissant and leaned back in new-found idleness. Shortly afterwards, a Spanish pilgrim limped into the bar and offered me a cigarette. He pointed to his swollen ankle and infected finger, and we commiserated over our various injuries. I expressed disappointment that we were now ineligible to receive the certificate of pilgrimage from Santiago cathedral, since we were resorting to motorized transport. `But you have walked 100km, no?' asked the genial Spaniard. `That's all you need.'

When I reached the pilgrim's office in Santiago, the clerk informed me that another Englishman had been in 15 minutes earlier. I signed my name underneath Ian's, and left clutching my certificate. It says something in Latin, presumably something rather uplifting, but of more material significance it entitles you to free meals in Santiago's finest hotel.

And so 12 motley modern pilgrims met for dinner around a table in a hotel backroom. We had come from different countries, for different reasons. Some had walked more than 1,500 miles, others less than 150; some had become acquainted, others had not--and yet there was a palpable camaraderie amongst us. There was a shared experience of adversity, joy and accomplishment. We had entered the community of the Way. Looking back on it, I recall a verse which carries more weight with me now:

`Come to me all ye who are weary and heavy-laden and I shall give you rest.'