Crossing the Pyrenees and plotting the route of my first novel

Dermot Miller is a writer who currently resides in Madrid.

Since my novel The Way was published by Ybernia in Madrid in April 2024, many readers have asked why the protoganist (and consequently I) chose to start his journey along El Camino in the middle of the Pyrenees in the province of Aragón, rather than opting for the more traditional starting point of The French Way, which is Saint-Jean-Pied-De-Port further to the west towards the Atlantic coast of France.

I particularly wanted to focus on the French Way simply because, out of the seven possible variants of El Camino, this is almost certainly the most popular and, in my view, it is the one which provides the reader with the widest overview of the formidable range  of regional peculiarities that Nortern Spain offers in terms of history, landscapes, folclore, cuisine etc.

The other possible long distance routes would have been The Portuguese Camino, starting in Lisbon, the Northern Camino starting in Irún and following the coast, and the Silver Camino which begins far to the south in Sevilla.

A gateway to Spain

I opted to start Dermot’s odyssey at the mountain pass of Somport in the far north of Aragón, which is one of the traditional gateways to Spain for travellers journeying from France. This route continues southward, passing the iconic train station at Canfranc and the bustling mountain town of Jaca, before veering west to join the more conventional French Way at Puente de la Reina, just south of Pamplona. I selected this route simply because my wife is a native of Aragón and has many friends and family members who live in Zaragoza, Jaca and the surrounding areas.

For many years, we have spent weekends and longer holidays in this province, either at the many ski-resorts near Jaca in winter, or discovering in summer the apparently limitless trekking routes in the Pyrenees. And, of course, many of these excursions involved following those parts of the Way To Santiago which pass through the province. 

Heeding Hemingway

Paying heed to a sound piece of advice offered by Hemingway when he suggested that, ‘you write best when you write about what you know’, it seemed logical for me to start the novel in those sections of El Camino with which I was most familiar. Ever since those initial journeys of discovery, I have gradually pieced together the rest of ‘The Way’ by walking different sections at different times over a long period of time, or through short vistis to the principal towns and cities on the route.

One thing that I can assure present (or potential) readers of The Way is that I myself never tire of uncovering on my travels new and fascinating aspects of the vast cultural canvas that is the territory of Spain, and I sincerely hope that some of you might be inspired to undertake some parts of the trek, and that you will delight in your own individual voyages of discovery as much as I have relished mine.

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A View of the Cathedral of Santiago De Compostela in Spain, by Jo Kassis @Pexels