Eleven-Year Old Beachwood Boy on Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela iam Torres is a Hilltop Elementary School 5th grader who plays soccer, football and basketball. Over the past year, he physically and emotionally prepared for a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela with his dad, Jose. Usually, when we hear the word “pilgrim,” we think of Plymouth, turkey and Thanksgiving Day, but the word has an older meaning. It actually refers to a person who is traveling to a sanctuary or a holy place. Although not well known here, peregrinos, as pilgrims are called in Spanish, have been continuously making their way to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain for the last millennium. “El Camino Frances” (the French route) is considered the main road for pilgrims coming from over the Pyrenees mountains, and is about 500 miles long when begun at the town of Saint Jean Pied de Port in France. A few years ago, Jose pledged to walk the Camino Frances, and he started preparing for it. Because the journey could take five weeks to complete, he chose to break it down into two-week segments each spring, starting in 2014. His plan was to go solo, but his eleven-year-old son, Liam, wanted to go too. After seeing Martin Sheen’s movie, “The Way,” Liam wanted to go even more. Jose was reluctant to let Liam join him at first because of the physical/spiritual challenge of walking 15 to 18 miles each day. Then, one day, Jose relented and agreed to let Liam prove himself. They took the Van Aken Rapid line to Tower City and walked all the way back to Beachwood. L After walking twelve miles, they turned onto Halburton Road; and Liam decided not to wait for his dad and jogged the rest of the way home. From that moment on, it was a team effort. In March, 2014, after months of preparation, Liam and Jose arrived in Paris. From Paris, they took two trains and a bus just to Liam and Jose walked the last forty-four miles in three days – from Estella to Torres del Rio, to Logrono, and then to Najera, a town from which Liam’s ancestors came. Jose took Liam to the Santa Maria la Real Church, were Liam saw the tombs of his ancestors. 46 Beachwood Buzz n July 2014 get to the town of Saint Jean Pied de Port where they spent the night at the municipal pilgrim home staffed by two volunteers from Holland. Pilgrims from the Netherlands, Ireland, Spain, France, South Korea, Italy and Germany arrived throughout the day, and everyone shared a large room with many bunk beds. The next morning at 7 a.m., with 50-degree weather and mist in the air, they began their ascent through the Pyrenees Mountains towards the Navarra province of Roncesvalles, a small medieval village where Charlemagne saw defeat in 778. With everything they needed on their backs, Liam and Jose climbed for seven hours. Starting at 600 meters above sea level, they climbed to 1,400 meters. Liam was the only child on the Camino that day, and he held his own, impressing many peregrinos. At one point, their group was joined by Fabrizio from Italy and Frank from Germany, and everyone helped each other and kept an eye on a Spanish pilgrim who continued the climb despite having hurt his knee. “It was a hard climb, but we finally arrived in Roncesvalles at 2 p.m., with no blisters,” Jose told us. “The first thing Liam did after arriving was to get his soccer ball and go out to play.”