What is the Camino de Santiago?

So what is this Camino?   If you Google Camino de Santiago you will get plenty of sites where you can read about this pilgrimage.  Two sites I have used are http://www.caminodesantiago.me.uk/ and americanpilgrims.com.  They will give you much more background, but basically you should know that the Camino de Santiago includes numerous pilgrimage routes throughout Europe which all culminate at Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain.  I will be using the route called Camino Frances which works its way through France then moves across Northern Spain.  I have selected Roncesvalles in Spain as my starting point.
   In The Pilgrimage Road to Santiago: The Complete Cultural Handbook, David M. Gitlitz and Linda Kay Davidson write, (referring to the story of St. James): "Honed over centuries of discoveries, intertretations, claims, and counterclaims, it lies somewhere between legend and fact, between superstition and belief."  To make a long story short, James (brother of John, son of Zebedee), a disciple of Jesus, went to Galicia preaching as he went.  He did not make many disciples, but in a vision the Virgin Mary asked him to build a church.  He erected La Iglesia de la Virgen del Pilar.  He then returned to Israel where he was beheaded in 44 C.E.
   His body was transported by boat back to Galicia where it was buried.  In the 9th century the bones were rediscovered and with the tomb now marked the pilgrimage gradually came into being.  Check out the website above (http://www.caminodesantiago.me.uk/) and click on St. James and History of the Camino for more information on James the Disciple and the Camino. 
    On August 25th I will leave Boston for Madrid and on the 26th I will make my way by bus to Pamplona where I will catch the evening bus to Roncesvalles.  Then on Saturday, August 27th I too will join the others who have walked this Camino for over 1,000 years.