Luís Silva, from the Diocese of Aveiro, shares his pilgrimage experience to Santiago de Compostela, carried out between August 18 and 22, 2026, along the Portuguese route, starting from Valença. The article begins with a philosophical reflection on the pilgrim's condition, citing Gabriel Marcel and the concept of "homo viator", and distinguishes the pilgrim from the tourist, highlighting that the pilgrim lingers, inhabits, and is inhabited by the places he crosses.
The group was made up of twelve people: six young people from the Estarreja group and six young people from the Missão País (Country Mission). Over the five days, they followed the reading of the five chapters of the Letter of Saint James, one per day, in a pilgrimage of more than 120 kilometres.
In Padrón, the author met a Portuguese pilgrim from the southern bank, identified only as A., who carried one of the most striking stories of the journey. A. had lost his sister fifteen days before, due to a prolonged oncological disease, and had promised her, on her deathbed, that he would make the pilgrimage and take her with him. He carried two pilgrim credentials in his wallet: his own and his sister's.
A. walked for fifteen consecutive hours, covering more than sixty kilometres, before finding a spot at Padrón's public hostel, which has a maximum capacity of 47 places. The author wrote a message for A. before leaving with the group, leaving testimony to how pilgrims' lives become forever intertwined after the journey, in a communion that reflects the human condition of interconnection.
