Photo by Graham Cullen The Rev. Portia Hirschman, who recently completed a 550-mile pilgrimage walk across Spain, holds a certificate she received for her journey. Hirschman is pastor at St. James Episcopal Church in Mount Airy.

A well-traveled religious destination since the Middle Ages among European Christians, fewer Americans make the pilgrimage, perhaps 2,000 annually. Beginning Sept. 3 in the small French town of St.-Jean-Pied-de-Port, the Rev. Portia Hirschman, 63, pastor at St. James Episcopal in Mount Airy , was one of those pilgrims.

"From March to December, there are literally hundreds of people walking every day, speaking a babel of languages," Hirschman said. "Where else does this happen? People under their own volition start walking and talking. They don't share a language or a culture, but they share laughter and start signing and it's really cool. People come together who never otherwise would've met. It's a remarkable experience."

Carrying a 20-pound backpack more than 550 miles over five weeks, she arrived in Santiago on Oct. 6 in time for the daily noon pilgrims' Mass. Hirschman also received the final stamp in Santiago on her official pilgrims' "passport," receiving her compostela ----the certificate of accomplishment given to those who walk a minimum of 100 kilometers along the Way of St. James.

Pilgrims' passports are examined for stamps from towns or villages along the journey, which includes several different routes. If an important stamp is missing, or if the pilgrim does not claim a religious purpose for their pilgrimage, according to tradition, the compostela may be refused.

St. James and his brother John were fishermen and two of Jesus' first disciples. Beheaded by King Herod Agrippa I in early persecution of the Church in Jerusalem, St. James was the first apostle to be martyred.

Myths sprung up that James evangelized in Spain, but those stories do not have historical support. Nonetheless, he is considered a patron saint of Spain, Hirschman said.

Today, she said, people walk El Camino de Santiago for a variety of reasons, religious and otherwise. Many people, she said, were looking for some sort of guidance, clarity or peace of mind during a difficult period.

"What stuck with me was not how different everyone was, but how similar the things were that everyone goes through," Hirschman said, adding she walked with pilgrims from French-speaking Canada, South Africa, South Korea, Japan, Hungary, Belgium, France, Germany and Italy along the way.

An avid hiker since she was in her early 50s, Hirschman said part of the reason she accepted a move seven years ago from her former Indiana church to St. James Episcopal in Mount Airy was its proximity to the Appalachian Trail. She'd long been intrigued by the Way of St. James, adding the name of her prospective church didn't hurt her decision process.

Mapping her progress

Congregants at home at St. James mapped her daily progress on a church bulletin board, placing photographs culled from the Internet of each stop next to her chart. Hirschman also kept a blog, www.itbeginswithonestepforward.com, posting to keep family, friends and church members up-to-date on her journey.

Living in dormitory-style hostels known as albergues, Hirschman said pilgrims bonded over shared "intimate space" -- kitchens, meals, bathrooms, coffee and conversations.

She spoke with recent Christian converts about their faith, others about divorces, career changes, elder care or issues with the institutional church. Others asked her about her vocation, and many, she laughed, asked her about Barack Obama and health care in the United States.

Of course, she added, weather conditions and "feet" were also a popular subject -- as was the incredible Spanish countryside.

The 550-mile trek, Hirschman said, broke into roughly three sections. The first, was the mountains, the Pyrenees, which Hirschman had to summit twice after making a wrong turn. Next came the Meseta -- the high central plains of Spain -- filled with huge fields of hay, wheat and 6-foot sunflowers, with majestic wind turbines on every ridge, she said.

"They really take recycling and renewable energy seriously," Hirschman said of the Spanish communities she encountered. "Even the tiniest towns recycle, the cell phone towers are powered by solar panels."

The final section, the Galicia region of Spain, which includes Santiago, is home to lush greenery, farms and vineyards.

Everywhere, native Spaniards offered her fresh pears, figs and grapes from their trees and vines, Hirschman said. Many such gifts, seemed to arrive as hunger, thirst and fatigue were setting in, offering renewed energy, she noted.

And there were other signs of what Appalachian hikers call "trail magic."

One older Spanish woman saved Hirschman an afternoon of anxiety when she appeared at just the right moment to point her, normally walking among a small group, in the correct direction and offer an apple as encouragement. And Hirschman herself lifted the spirits of a South Korean man she'd met previously on the walk, returning a Bible that he'd left in a small cafe after catching up to him several days later.

The biggest miracle, she said, is that more 100,000 people, young and old, still walk to Santiago each year after all this time.

"Jesus told James that he was going to make him a 'fisher of people,'" Hirschman said, "and he did. Two thousand years after he was killed, he continues to cast a wide net. People are still coming to him."