Renunciation is temporary, giving up permanent...
"My house does not appear correctly on the map in the app," says our hostess when I call her a day in advance to book a pilgrim accommodation. "Maybe you can send me a link from Google Maps," I suggest. That seems like the quickest and easiest solution for now, but the woman doesn't seem to know how to do it. "It's the little red house on the country road". Ah...! That might work in the Netherlands, but this is Sweden. The land of red cottages lying on country roads....
We are hiking, Ria and I. We are walking a 140 km pilgrimage route from Jönköping to Vadstena, one of the St. Birgitta Ways in Sweden, a network of pilgrimage routes that all lead to Vadstena. It had long been a wish of mine to do a long distance walk of several days, and now the opportunity presented itself. Or rather, Ria suggested it. For those who do not know Ria Warmerdam, she is the author of the Dutch-language walking guides of the pilgrim routes in Norway and Sweden. Her walking guide and my cycling guide to the Gudbrandsdalsleden (Oslo-Trondheim) came out in English last February. We work together a lot, and this year we are in Sweden for the first time for a (potential) joint project.
I will tell you right away how the pilgrimage went for me: the arrival was just as spectacular as the one on the coastal pilgrimage route in July. Then I ended up at the Legevagt, the Emercency room at the hospital in Trondheim. This time I finished at Vårdcentralen, the Emercency room in Vadstena...
It all began last February in Hamburg. We had been invited by Pillegrimsleden, the Norwegian pilgrims' organization, to take part in a pilgrims' fair. Together with the Norwegians, Swedes and Finns, we were in the Nordic Corner, a small corner in the large church that was otherwise filled with stands from the pilgrim routes to Santiago and Rome. Next to us was Swedish Eva Hagström, who works at the pilgrimage centre in Vadstena and is the driving force behind the development of the St. Birgitta's Way. Eva was very interested in our guides, and we were very interested in the St. Birgitta Ways. The latter are still largely under development and Eva thought that we might be able to contribute with our knowledge and experience of pilgrim routes, and perhaps a walking guide and a cycling guide could emerge. Soon a plan was in place: we would both come to Vadstena at the end of the summer to talk and explore.
And then Ria came up with the idea of walking to Vadstena. She had seen that there was a pilgrim route from Jönköping. And before I looked at the map to see where Jönköping was in relation to Vadstena, and before I asked Ria how long the walk would be, I immediately shouted enthusiastically: "Yes, great! Let's do it!"
Cool, a couple of days walking, I've been wanting to do that for so long, but never came to it, and now I had a great opportunity to try it out.
"The route is 140 km long, and it could take us about seven days. Then we walk an average of 20 km a day," says Ria.
"But if you think that's a bit much, we could take eight days".
Oops! That's a bit more than a couple of days, and it's a long time and a lot for such a first time!
But Ria reassured me: "We'll just give it a go and see how far we get. There is a bus service along the whole route".
And so, on August 18, I found myself waiting for Ria at the small airport in Linköping. Ready for a new adventure! Well, ready... I ended the last newsletter with And as true pilgrims, we'll be going to Vadstena by foot! My very first multi-day hiking experience... To be honest, I didn't think I'd make it, so I didn't want to mention the number of kilometres and days at the time. I had just finished Covid, had another course of antibiotics for Lyme and had done less cycling this summer than I had planned. My fitness was very poor, I was still suffering from fatigue and I hadn't had the time or space to do the occasional day's walking in preparation for this trip.
With this extra 'baggage' we began our walking adventure. For Ria it was a piece of cake, but for me it was new territory. I was so excited! And the limitations did not stop me from starting the walk. You can always give up if you have to. First we drove to Vadstena. We would leave the car and bike there to take the train to Jönköping and then walk back to Vadstena in 7 or 8 days. Ria had suggested we do a test walk in Vadstena first to see if I could make it for a day. We stayed in Vadstena for two days and passed the test walk with flying colours. The 13-plus kilometres proved to be manageable, with the exception of some sore muscles and a blister on my left foot.
Seven long, wonderful, amazing but painful days of walking followed. Whereas during the trial walk I only had a blister on my left foot, during these seven days it was my right foot that caused me problems. My right big toe had once been broken and had not healed properly. I didn't know that until I had an x-ray done and it showed a badly healed fracture. It caused arthritis. It hardly affects me on a daily basis, but those seven days were mostly TOE. Everything I felt and thought was TOE. Knives were stuck into me, so sometimes I would make a strange noise out of nowhere, and a constant nagging pain tried to distract me from the beautiful scenery. But it didn't work! Despite the TOE, I was able to enjoy the beautiful scenery immensely. Ria taught me the names of the field flowers, we were lucky with the weather and together with Ria it was very pleasant. Even when TOE became FOOT. From the third day (I think) Blister 1 appeared on the left side of the same toe. Then I thought i had a little something in my sock, but that was Blister 2, on my smallest toe. The two toes next to it had two small wounds. The next day, Blister 3 appeared on my heel. Ria turned out to be an experienced blister attendant, but mine were a bit stubborn. Or was I just being stubborn by wanting to keep going? Probably the latter. But I really didn't want to stop. Apart from the pain, I thought it was really cool. I liked the slowness and the simplicity. You see so much! More than on a bike. And everything you have with you is in a bagpack. In the evening you turn it over, but there is not much in it: an extra set of clothes, underwear, a toiletry bag with almost nothing in it, a rain jacket, rain trousers, a sitting pad, water and food. We shared sunscreen, mosquito repellent, foot cream and shampoo. That's it! Or in Swedish, det är det!
Most nights we slept in a Församlingshem, a community house belonging to the church. Much more than in Norway, the church, in this case the Svenska Kyrka, is more involved in the pilgrim ways. Churches are open all along the route, and the Församlingshem welcoming pilgrims to stay the night (free of charge). There are also youth hostels and a few private pilgrims' accommodations. We used the latter once: the red house on the country road. We were able to find the address by searching for the phone number on the Internet. In Sweden, people are less careful with personal data.
The red house on the country road...
By the way, not only did Ria prove to be good company (I already knew that, of course), but she also enjoyed cooking in the evenings. And I didn't... So I was a lucky bastard! Well, actually, we both were. Ria did what I didn't like to do and I did what Ria didn't like to do: find accommodation and doing the washing up.
I thought it would be less pleasant to know in advance where you will be staying for the next day or two. You're much more flexible with a tent, but we hadn't brought one. I discovered I didn't mind. Maybe it was even easy. You know in advance exactly how long you are going to hike that day. You always have the security of a place to sleep, and you are not tempted to give in to fatigue too quickly. In the worst case, you take the bus to your destination, but that turned out to be unnecessary.
Speaking of fatigue, my lack of fitness did not bother me. The distances were manageable in terms of energy. I only had sore muscles for the first two or three days, then it was over. But yes, that FOOT! Wednesday 28 August was our last day of walking. Unfortunately, the route was a little less interesting than the days before, and I had a little less distraction. I stumbled into Vadstena, but I had made it! The next day we met up with Eva and her colleague Emanuel. They wanted to hear about our experiences and discuss what else we could do for each other. I could no longer walk properly and was quite distracted by the pain during the discussion. The wounds had started to inflame, and the osteoarthritis hurted terribly. It even made me nauseous. I was also suffering from lymph nodes in my groin. When I went to apologize, Ria and Eva said it would be better to have a doctor look at it. Before I knew it, I was in the car with Eva and within ten minutes we were at the Emergency room.
Nurse Marie was very kind. "Maybe I should have stopped earlier anyway," I said guiltily. "Ah", she said, "it's easy to talk in hindsight. And everything will be fine again, you know". The pain in the lymph nodes turned out to be an effect of the inflammation in the foot. The wounds were cleaned (luckily Marie had a big apron on) and samples taken from the wound to check for bacteria. Fortunately, this turned out not to be the case. They also took some blood just to be sure. I have to come back tomorrow for a check-up, but I feel pretty good now. I'm not hopping yet, but I'm sure it won't be long now. Ria and I will be staying here for a while and are currently staying in a lovely Airbnb.
Well, neither of us would use the word 'cute' lightly. But this cottage certainly lives up to it.
We had decided that Ria would continue to hike around here, and I would settle down at the B&B to work and rest my foot. But hey, I have a bike! And the weather is nice. So Ria walks and I cycle. Carefully, though, because putting force in doesn't feel good and I don't want to bang my foot. Writing a newsletter is also a foot-friendly activity.
We walk and cycle our own routes, but sometimes we cross paths.
We blijven hier nog een kleine week en zaterdag 7 september zijn we weer thuis.
We will stay here for just under a week and will be back home on Saturday 7 September.
I now take a quick look at map of Sweden. We walked along Lake Vättern, the right one of the two big lakes. That one actually looks quite like a big long toe....
N.B. Soon you will be able to read her blog about our trip on Ria’s website (Dutch). And if you want to know more about the St Birgita Ways, click here:: Naturkartan (English) or St. Birgitta Ways (Swedish).
