Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
So pilgrimage holidays are becoming hugely popular again with Irish travellers from Lourdes to Medjugorje and the Camino routes across Spain. Well, our intrepid travel reporter Ed Finn from Ed Finn Travels is this morning in a place that I have to admit I'd never even heard of before. Covadonga in Asturias in northern Spain. Hello, Ed.
Hi Clare, how are you? I'm very well.
What's it like there?
Chapter 2: What are the most popular pilgrimage holidays for Irish travellers?
Absolutely beautiful. So this is the new route here, this is Asturias and in fact Clare, when you talk about Camino, this is where the first ever Camino, where it actually started. So this is the home in 1813 under King Alfonso, who was the first pilgrim and they went from Oviedo here to the relic, of course, where St. James was in Santiago. So I'm actually doing the first ever where it started.
I'm actually going back to the roots of it. And this is a very picturesque one because it's Asturias, I suppose, which is known as kind of green Spain.
Chapter 3: What is Covadonga and why is it significant in pilgrimage history?
And you're up in the mountains here. It's just all this gorgeous greenery. And, you know, there's like six national parks here. The air is so fresh. It's absolutely gorgeous and a really scenic, lovely way to kind of do the Camino.
So are you in northern Spain then, as you talked to us this morning? And are you coastal northern Spain, out by the west or where are you?
Yeah, exactly. So I came in on Saturday. So the flight goes twice a week, right, to Oviedo, which is Asturias. And I was in Gion, which was the coastal town on Saturday. And that's got lovely beaches. Now, just to give you an idea, I mean, Asturias is like Cornwall and Devon. It'd be about that size. It has about a million people. But you have lovely beaches here as well.
But I'm inland now where the Camino kind of starts. So that's where I am now. So I was last night, I was up in a place called Caleo, which is up in the mountains. and I stayed in an eco hotel which overlooked all these beautiful, you think you'll be in, it's like you're in a tropical rainforest or something, it's absolutely stunning.
So, I'm inland now a little bit and then from here, where I am now, from Oviedo Claire, to go to Santiago, it would be, it's two weeks if you're actually walking. So, I'm just going to do a few little, I'm going to do a few segments of it now and then I'm going to come back and I'm going to finish it. So, yeah, so that's where I am. And it's beautiful.
And the weather here as well, because it's green Spain in the north, it's very, the air is fresh and it's really nice and it's not your hot sort of south of Spain.
So if you were to do this as a pilgrimage and walk the whole thing, you'd be looking at booking two weeks there, would you?
Yeah, absolutely. And what's really great as well is I'm actually, I hired a driver and a car here. So if you were a family. You're being good to yourself. I know, I know. It's very good value. But Clare, again, just I'll touch on, I mean, we'll chat about the value. It's just such, you know, spending money here. It's just the value is amazing.
So you can do a lot of things here that would cost you a lot less than it would in other places. So it's really nice because, you know, you walk about 15 kilometres or whatever to up to 20 is the maximum. And then your driver sort of brings your luggage to your different hotels.
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Chapter 4: What makes Asturias known as 'green Spain'?
So you're eating very healthy salads and seafood and just the quality of everything. And two, like 250 for a glass of wine, 15 euro clear for the menu of the day, three courses. So you can see the value. You're getting this fabulous value for money as well as you're spiritually cleansing your soul as you wander along.
And you say that there is an increase in interest and popularity when it comes to this type of a holiday.
Yeah, there is, absolutely. I mean, look, where I am now today, Covadonga, right, which you mentioned earlier, that is going way back, you know, there was a Marian shrine there. It's where the reconquest of Spain, I suppose, started when you go back to when the Moors were here, when Spain started to become Christian again, it started here. So there's fabulous history here.
There's the Marian Shrine here, which is, again, going way back, you know, when they found a sort of a well here. And there's massive pilgrims come here as well to the Marian Shrine. There's the Virgin of Covadonga, which is absolutely stunning. It's in a cave. So again, for me, this is lovely, Clare, because it's all new and it's all really fresh.
You know, when you think of Yellowstone Park in America or somewhere like these national parks, This was 1916, 1918, they started the first national park here, the Picos de Europa. And over 30% of this region here in Asturias is all protected biospheres. And I remember telling you before, there's actually brown bears here in the mountains as well.
So that'll give you an idea how clean and the air is and everything is fresh.
Watch out for those colours now. We want you to come back to us. Listen, you mentioned the driver and the luggage and all of that. Are most people who are on this pilgrimage, are they doing it as an organised tour like that where they have somebody bringing their stuff for them and they know exactly where they're going and all of this?
Yeah, there's a different mix. I mean, there was loads of different people coming over on the flight over. Now, there was people doing it themselves, that people had kind of researched it and they had backpacks with them and they were just going to do it sort of, you know, very sort of hostel-y, refugio. So there's totally, there's loads of different options.
But here they have lovely like little boutique hotels like where we stayed last night. Now you have lovely little hotels pools and, you know, it's got all these natural springs. So, yeah, but a lot of people are doing the organised ones. Absolutely. This wouldn't be that commercial. I suppose the Camino del Francis, Clare, would be the one a lot of people would do. Yes.
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