So I have had to postpone the WWI trek. Sadly, my funding didn’t come through and I was left not able to do it. 🙁
But changes are a fact of life, and I had been planning this trek for September, and then planning to do the Camino de Santiago next april. The Camino is a much cheaper proposition, and so I decided to swap them! HOOORAY! So now I shall be a pilgrim on the Way of Saint James! I will be starting in Pamplona on Aug. 28 and then walking 450-500kms of a 700km route. Yes. I will be sneaking ahead in a few places on the train.
But fret not, my friends! Even though the Camino is traditionally a religious route, there is still more war along it than I can shake a stick (or a trekking pole!!!) at! I haven’t spent much time in Spain, just to Barcelona a few times, so this will be really exciting for me. Do I speak a word of Spanish? Not really! Just the very basics of Mexican spanish from trips to Mexico, but those languages are as different as Quebecois and French. But I am on tenterhooks to head off! Everyone says the Camino is a life changing experience!
And…To be honest, Spain is brimming with war! Check it out!
In fact, to steal from Wikipedia…
218–17 BC Roman conquest of Hispania
181–179 BC First Celtiberian War
154–152 BC Numantine War/Second Celtiberian War
80–72 BC Sertorian War
49–45 BC Caesar’s Civil War
29–19 BC Cantabrian Wars
551–555 Byzantine conquest of Spania
711–718 Umayyad conquest of Hispania
722–1492 Reconquista
778–812 Carolingian Expansion to the South
1009–1031 Fitna of al-Andalus
1107–1110 Norwegian Crusade
1113–1115 Balearic Islands expedition
1209–1255 Albigensian Crusade
1282–1302 War of the Sicilian Vespers
1284–1285 Aragonese Crusade
1356–1375 War of the Two Peters
1366–1369 Castilian Civil War
1383–1385 1383–85 Crisis
1402–1496 Conquest of the Canary Islands
1475–1479 War of the Castilian Succession
1482-1492 Granada War
Spanish conquest of Iberian Navarre
(1512)
Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604)
Acoma War
(1598–1599)
Anglo-Spanish War (1625–1630)
Franco-Spanish War (1635–1659)
Catalan Revolt (1640–1659)
War of the Spanish Succession
(1701–1714)
War of the Quadruple Alliance
(1718–1720)
Anglo-Spanish War (1727–29)
Spanish–Portuguese War (1735–1737)
War of Jenkins’ Ear
(1739–1748) (the war with the best name, though not in spain!)
Spanish–Portuguese War (1776–1777)
War of the Pyrenees
(1793–1795)
Anglo-Spanish War (1796–1808)
War of the Oranges
(1801)
War of the Third Coalition
(1803–1806)
Invasion of Portugal (1807)
Peninsular War
(1808–1814)
French invasion of Spain
(1823)
Portuguese Civil War
(1828–34)
First Carlist War
(1833–1839)
Second Carlist War
(1846–49)
Third Carlist War
(1872–76)
Spanish Civil War
(1936–39)