Pilgrimage

         For many years, people from different cultural groups have been going on pilgrimage in order to become closer to God and because of the most important aspects of their faith. Generally, pilgrimage is a journey to a place considered sacred for religious purposes (AP Human Geography p185). 

This is how this journey looks like.

       There are a large amount of different pilgrimages that we can meet with but today we are going to talk about one of the special and most popular ones. Here are three examples of such walking pilgrimages in the world: 1) Camino de Santiago, Spain. 2) Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, Peru. 3) Kumano Ancient Trail, Japan. Here is the source where you can read about them in more details (http://travel.cnn.com/7-walks-change-your-life-961981/).

 Kumano Ancient Trail

Inca Trail to Machu Picchu

Camino de Santiago

Camino de Santiago

              So, let's zoom all our attention on Camino de Santiago. "Also known as The Way of St. James, the Camino de Santiago is a popular walking path that leads to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. Here, the apostle St. James is said to be buried."(http://travel.cnn.com/7-walks-change-your-life-961981/). Here is the image of a map with its main routes:

Source:(Camino de Santiago/ St. James way/ Chemin de Saint Jacques/ Jakob…)

              The way to Santiago de Compostela

         Imagine if you are going to walk from Salzburg to Santiago de Compostela. It looks kind of complicated if you think about how to get there through Salzburg. Here is the image of map of path through which you can get there and also a least of major towns and cities you would need to go through: 

Major towns and cities:

1. Salzburg
2. Freilassing
3. Teisendorf
4. Traunstein
5. Bad Tolz
6. Kempten
7. Friedrichshafen
8. Biel/Bienne
9. Lons-le-Saunier
10. Vichy
11. Ussel
12. Brive-la-Gaillarde
13. Terrason-Lavilledieu
14. Saint-Felix-de-Villadeix
15. Bergerac
16. Langon
17. Morcenx
18. Saint-Geours-de-Maremne
19. Bayonne
20. Victoria-Gasteiz
21. Ponferrada
22. Melide
23. Santiago de Compostela

                  Jakobsweg

           After this research, I was so surprised that Salzburg can somehow be connected to pilgrimage. So, I decided to go around the Salzburg by myself and try to find any signs of this pilgrimage journey. Results were extremely great! Jakobsweg path, all the time, was located here, in Salzburg. Here are some photos that I took during my expedition:

Calculations 

To walk from Salzburg's Cathedral to the Cathedral in Santiago de Compostella will take you around 446 hours without stopping and distance is around 2148 km. Also, do not forget that they should go back through the same distance, so we should double this distance and it would be 4296 km.

Main questions 

1. What obstacles might have been in pilgrims way? Answer: Obstacles such as changes in climate, the intervention of other societies, different types of landscapes that they need cross over and etc.
2. How long do you think it took them? Answer: with considiration of a time that they are going to spend while going there and going back, it would take them around 900 total hours.
3. What might this journey have meant to them? Answer: How we already mentioned before, entire journey is all about pilgrims faith. For centuries, they have been reaching sacred places in order to "speak" to God.