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TRAVEL- SPAIN
EMILIO SALVATORI & CHRISTINA ZOLI
BEYOND LAY ONLY THE UNKNOWN
As one approaches the Pass of Roncesvalles, the historic gateway between Spain and France across the Pyrenees, it almost feels possible to hear once again the sound of the Olifant: the legendary horn with which Roland, the Christian paladin celebrated by Boiardo and Ariosto, warned Charlemagne of the Saracen ambush that wiped out the rear guard of the Frankish army. It was August 778, and it is from this very epic place, commemorated by a plaque facing the Royal Collegiate Church of Santa María, that the Camino symbolically begins, leading all the way to Santiago de Compostela, where the mortal remains of the Apostle James are said to rest.
The route stretches for 790 kilometres, an itinerary that gained momentum from the year 813 onwards, weaving religious devotion together with the political will of the Christian kingdoms to reclaim
their land. Over the centuries, this blend of faith and history has drawn an unbroken flow of pilgrims towards Santiago, making it the second most important pilgrimage in the Christian world after Rome and Jerusalem. Strictly speaking, however, the official Camino begins some thirty kilometres before Roncesvalles, at the Abbey of Saint- Jean-Pied-de-Port, still on French soil. Here, modern pilgrims can obtain the Credencial, the coveted travel document that records each stage with stamps along the way and ultimately grants the right to receive the Compostela, the certificate that rewards a journey as demanding physically as it is spiritually.
From Roncesvalles the road now descends through flowing curves, almost as far as Pamplona, a city famous worldwide for the celebrations held every year in early July in honour of San Fermín. At precisely eight o’ clock in the
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