What was the best tip you got before you left? My mother told me to read I’m Off Then: My Journey Along the Camino de Santiago by German comedian Hape Kerkeling. I read it on the plane. It's a funny, breezy read that gives you a good idea what it's like on the trails.
What did you do? We ate at Barcelona's local food market (La Boqueria) and visited Museo Picasso, Museo d’Art Contemporani, Museo d’Historia de la Ciutat, Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia cathedral, and Casa Batlló.
We traveled through forests, farmland, and tiny medieval villages and made our way to Pamplona in a few days' time. Once we arrived, we had café con leche and anchovy sandwiches at Café Iruña on the Plaza del Castillo (famous for being Hemingway’s hangout during the San Fermín festival for the running of the bulls). In the morning I hopped on a train bound for Madrid to spend my final day at the Prado Museum before flying home to New York.
2. Site/place/thing you did: Beautiful old cathedrals are common in Europe, but as an American doing the Camino for the first time (and not a particularly religious one at that), they took on a particular significance, as the journey is inevitably a spiritual one. They offered great historial and cultural lessons. We visited an ancient Gothic cathedral almost every day. One of our favorites was the Cathedral de Santa Maria in Pamplona.
What’s the local speciality? We were in Basque country, so we ate seafood like bacalao (salt cod) and octopus, white bean stews, delicious sheep cheese, local white asparagus, and pimiento de piquillo (small, red, cone-shaped peppers). Delicious! There were limited lunch options on the Camino — and fresh vegetables were hard to come by — so lunch was usually a bocadillo with jamón y queso (baguette with local ham and cheese) or a potato tortilla if we were lucky. I had the best paella of my life at Senyor Parellada in Barcelona.
Any places you didn't get to visit, but wanted to? Gaudi’s Parc Güell and the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona.
When you're at kilometer 30 and need an aspirin, you'll be glad you stocked goodies from Fathom's first aid shop.