In 2008 Australian journalist and organic olive oil producer Dee Nolan journeyed with us on our On Glory Roads: Camino de Santiago pilgrimage tour.
She has crafted an extraordinarily beautiful book detailing her pilgrimage to Compostela - A Food Lover’s Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela (Penguin, 2010).

Dee Nolan's Food Journey Testimonial

Sometimes you just stick a pin in the map and get plain lucky. Or, as happened to me in this Age of Google, you click on one of the zillions of Internet entries for the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, and find yourself reading about Nancy Frey. I just can’t imagine how my pilgrimage and my desire to write a book about it would have been if I’d hadn’t met Nancy and her partner Jose.

In an act of faith, our little gang of Australian pilgrims flew half way around the world and placed ourselves under Nancy’s tutelage. The result was an experience and a relationship that has been rewarding beyond any of our expectations. Her deep knowledge of the camino, of its history and its stories, past and present, put our pilgrimage in a rich cultural context that it would have taken months, or more likely years, to match if we’d had to tackle it on our own. As well, she gave us all an insight into contemporary life in Spain via her years of living in her adopted country and her time with Jose.
And best of all, we laughed a lot along the way.

Nancy and Jose’s adorable four-year-old daughter Marina accompanied us on our 11-day Camino de Santiago adventure. At the start of the first day’s walk she gave each of us a scallop shell - the symbol of the pilgrimage. In winter the family gathers shells on the beach near their home which they thread with red ribbon and give to their guests. Jose disappeared off each morning to track down sensational local produce for our picnic lunches - not just delicious, but the ideal way to understand why regional food traditions remain so treasured. Our itinerary was carefully chosen to build, bit by bit, the narrative of the Way of St James, medieval and modern, and so by the time we reached the cathedral in Santiago, the pilgrimage jigsaw puzzle fitted together beautifully.

Those of us from the other side of the world returned home with Marina’s scallop shell and the camino forever in our hearts.

Dee Nolan journalist and organic olive oil producer www.nolansroad.com

A Food Lover’s Pilgrimage to Santiago De Compostela by Dee Nolan, published by Lantern / Penguin Australia, 25 October 2010, hardback 420pp, ISBN 9781920989910, RRP AUD 100.00.