How do you spend a long-overdue sabbatical?

Tony Collins chose to walk the 490 miles of the Camino, from the French border to Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. He was deliberately stepping out of his comfort zone: undertaking a pilgrimage through a land whose language he did not speak, into a culture far removed from his own, in search of sources of reverence.

He had expected the Way to be arduous, and so it proved. But he had not expected so bracing an internal journey, is battered soul laid down for examination, past errors offered up for scrutiny. He hadn’t expected such moments of intense spiritual encounter, nor so many previous friendships, not so much fun. He discovered, above all, as many have before him, that the Way leaves an indelible mark.