I'm on the road again these days. Not the way of the swan my LJ icon and LJ (and BookCrosssing) nickname hints at, but the way of St.James, the road through all of (western) Europe leading to Santiago de Compostella.

The newest leg of the road will lead me from Lucerne in the direction of Berne, the capital of Switzerland, not all the way, but some miles at least. Pictures will follow if someone is interested in our pilgrimage-which-spans-years.


Actually we started ten years ago, when it was less of a hype - before the Hape Kerkeling bestselling book "Ich bin dann mal weg". Since 1992,we learned recently, 5-6,000 more arrive annually, compared to the year before.

What we do might seem nerdy, but befitting a medievalist: We follow a guiidebook from the late middle ages, Hermann Künig von Vach's book of St. James from 1495 AD, which leads from the benedictine abbey of Einsiedeln all the way to Santiago in spanish Galicia.

The guidebook is edited (with footnotes mostly referencing the modern placenames) in a book to which I contributed a short translation, of the pilgrimage of the english woman margeryk. (Kempe, in this case, 1417). Among the many translations I did (from AWeb to CAcert) this was the only paid translation I ever did from middle-english...

I will be just a few days, staying in youth hostels where possible, but I enjoy them nevertheless.

Tags: jakobsweg, travels