Today we are leaving for our honeymoon and I couldn’t have asked for a better companion, or a better itinerary.

I said it in my last post, and I’ll say it again: I’m lucky. I feel extremely grateful to be in such a position at this point in my life.

Tomorrow we will start walking the Camino del Norte, starting from Bilbao. By our calculations this should be a comfortable walk for the time we have at disposal (about a month). It’s going to be something around 700 Km, all things considered.

It’s a strange feeling, one of happiness and expectation. It’s been 11 years since my last Camino, along the traditional French route. In terms of long walks, it’s been 8 years since the Shikoku Henro, which was the reason I started to write on this blog.

For Laura, this will be her first proper walk. She was mad enough to start dating me, even madder to marry me, but the maddest thing of all was for her to accept to walk with me. Spare a thought for her, while you follow our journey here. I hope I won’t be too much to put up with, as a traditionally solo traveler.

As I write this, we have just boarded our train to Milan. From there, we will go to the Malpensa airport (no, I won’t be using its new name). Hopefully we won’t be too much affected by the huge CrowdStrike shitstorm that happened yesterday. We’re supposed to get to Bilbao shortly before 11 PM. Once we get there, we will check-in at a regular hotel (the “albergues” close quite early) and begin our walk tomorrow.

As always, the last days before leaving have been the worst. We’ve been quite busy at work, getting as much done as possible before our departure. Furthermore, I have been constantly thinking about what can go wrong during the journey, and try to account for it. What if the bag is too heavy? What if my knee starts hurting again? What if the new shoes are not the right ones? And so on…

It’s like a happiness tax you have to pay early, before you earn your “income” on the Camino.

As a matter of fact, today we paid the last installment of that annoying tax, and we are finally on our way.

We haven’t fully realized yet that we have actually left. I guess the full reality of the Camino will hit us soon enough, e.g. when tomorrow morning the alarm will wake us up at 6 AM.

The option of walking along the Northern route seemed to be the best one, because of the colder temperatures we are likely to have along the coast, as compared to the dreadful mesetas in Castilla. We’ll see. It’s likely that we will get some rain and actual cold temperatures even in August. It’s not ideal, but I’m sure we’ll manage whatever is thrown at us.

My goal is to keep a diary here of our journey, and I hope you’ll follow us over the next five weeks.

We haven’t trained almost at all, save for a single-day hike a couple of weeks ago. Our bodies are not ready for this, and our minds are drained from months of non-stop work and a very busy spring.

I trust the Camino will help us after a few days of acclimatization. I’m confident the yellow arrows will not betray us, but deliver us with a fantastic journey.

You are welcome to be a part of it.