From Cirauqui, Navarre
The women of Cirauqui were dressed in traditional white clothes with red kerchiefs for Lady's Mass. After the service, the men had set up tables in the shady village square, with wine flowing and bundles of dried vines squirted with extra virgin olive oil and set alight to grill piles and piles of sardines.

And that was it, a lump of bread, fresh sardines and a cup of wine. Not a tourist in site, Spain at its most unguarded and engaging.

From Burguete, Navarre
It felt as if that great slab of a stone bridge had been there forever. I got a palpable sense of the history which had passed over this stone, all the footsteps which smooth it, each one leaving the most tiny imprint.

That's the thing about the Camino - it's ancient, it's very low impact. Nobody's racing, nobody's walking along talking on their phones, it's resolutely un-modern and very, very human.

From Estella, Navarre
When you come out of the Pyrenees and cross the hills, you emerge to a landscape more recognisably 'Spanish'. Rolling hills, vineyards, sandstone villages, olive trees.

But what I loved about this part of the walk were the smells and the sounds. Wild fennel, sage, wild flowers and blossom surround the path. Birds cheep, church bells ring, people talk. Normally I'm a very fast walker but the Camino made me want to slow down and take it all in.

From Burgos, Castile y León
Emerging from the Montes de Oca forests, you see yellow arrows everywhere; tiled into walls, bolted to signposts and painted onto surfaces. In a field of sunflowers, someone had even taken the time to pluck out the seeds to make a perfect arrow.

You really can't get lost here, so I think it was done to make people smile. That someone would create something so fleeting to benefit strangers says something reassuring about the world.

From Atapuerca, Castile y León
Right here is where our earliest ancestors roamed. The remains found at the Atapuerca archaeological dig date back as much as 1.3 million years, making this the most important archaeological landscape in Europe, arguably the world.

But what I was also looking at is quite simply a beautiful, open landscape of grassland punctuated with enormous, ancient oak trees. It's a place you can walk in silence and absorb the space.

From Burgos, Castile y León
The Camino is not all about the walking. It's a story of humanity. In a bar amid the bustle of Burgos they served me a G&T which sits among the all time greats. But then that's by-the-by. It's the sign I love most. It translates as: 'We don't have wi-fi, talk to each other.'

Absolute genius and a sentiment perfectly inkeeping with the Camino.

From Burgos, Castile y León
The art of food. Everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Along the way, we encountered beautiful food at every stage of the Camino. Made with such care and flair and presented so beautifully that it is near impossible to resist working your way through everything on display, like these tapas in Burgos.

I can resist everything except temptation.

From Astorga, Castile y León
A barn-cum-mud-hut sits on the high plain as you approach Astorga. It's an unforgiving place - brutally hot in summer, bitingly cold in winter. And yet, here lived a young man called David, who looks like our received images of Jesus - beautiful, beatific and bearded. His little stall is filled with drinks and snacks.

But it's not a shop, it's not for sale. It's for the pilgrims to take. I love the spirit which underlies this simple, ongoing act.

From Astorga, Castile y León
Sitting just outside Astorga at the point where two branches of the Camino meet - the Francés and the Via de la Plata from Andalucia - is the guitarist of Astorga. It's at this point that the Camino starts to get busier, you feel the atmosphere rising as you see more and more pilgrims around you.

To come across this chap singing away as you come off the plains creates an excitement all of its own.

Brilliant.

From Lugo, Galicia
O Cebreiro is the section of the Camino which brings you into Galicia. Bear in mind that the day before, we'd been walking across the plains of Castile so the change in landscape is dramatic.

It's an eight or nine kilometre uphill slog to get to this point but the views are fantastic. Down at the bottom of the hill is a truly inspired piece of marketing for horses for hire 'Te subimos!' We'll get you to the top!

From Lugo, Galicia
Sorry, I don't know his name. But we sat on a wall and talked about goats, the Camino, life. Rural life in Galicia is hard - over the generations the farms have been split between children and then split again until nobody has a plot big enough to sustain their families. Then there's the harsh weather...

But on a day like this, the sun streaming down through the trees, the clanking of the goats' bells, this was a man at peace.

From Santiago de Compostela, Galicia
Here's a small provincial city in all of its glorious Spanishness - lovely food, buildings, culture, people. But it's a city which, for over a thousand years, has welcomed people from all over the world. It's open, welcoming and diverse.

And in the Plaza do Obradeiro, where most pilgrims finish their journey, there is singing, there is dancing, a lot of crying and lots of noise. It's incredibly energetic and spectacularly moving.