El Camino de Santiago

Attorney Chris Llinas, a 1997 graduate of the Franklin Pierce Law Center, now the University of New Hampshire School of Law, gained considerable experience in the law as a public defender, an assistant state’s attorney, a solo law practitioner, and corporate counsel before opening his own private practice, J. Christopher Llinas, Attorney at Law, in Ocean Pines, Maryland, in early 2015. An avid athlete and traveler, Chris Llinas plans to walk the final 100 kilometers of the Camino de Santiago in Spain.

In English, “El Camino de Santiago” is “The Way of St. James,” any one of many routes taken by pilgrims to reach the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, reputedly the final resting place of the remains of Jesus’ apostle, St. James the Elder. For many centuries, the Camino de Santiago was one of the three main Christian pilgrimages, along with the pilgrimages to Rome and to Jerusalem. Christians who completed any of these pilgrimages expected to receive spiritual blessings.

Modern pilgrimages are memorialized with a “compostela,” a certificate attesting to the pilgrim’s journey. A “compostela” is granted to all pilgrims who document their walk over the final 100 kilometers, or cycle over the final 200 kilometers, in a “credencial,” a special document similar to a passport, available to pilgrims from a variety of sources. When they stay overnight along the route, eat in a restaurant, or visit a church, museum, or police station along the route, they can have their “credenciales” stamped with each establishment’s unique identifier, called a “cello,” thus documenting their journey.