I got an unexpected but very welcome email this morning from Robert Ward. He is a Toronto-based writer and traveller with a special interest in pilgrimages. He is the author of Virgin Trails (Key Porter, 2002), an agnostic’s guide to the history and worship of the Virgin Mary; and All the Good Pilgrims (Thomas Allen, 2007), a lighthearted account of his several walks on the Camino de Santiago pilgrim road. We exchanged books last fall.

The email: Hi Guy, Hope all’s well with you. I finally read your book a few weeks ago and am heartily glad I did. I posted a little review on my blog. 

Here is his review from his website, http://robertward.ca/blog/index.html.

A recent read that took me back to Spain in all the right ways is Guy Thatcher’s A Journey of Days. Guy’s account is lively, frank and utterly unpretentious, beautifully illustrated with the author’s colour photos, and topped off with a thoughtful epilogue, “Life’s Lessons Relearned.” It was when I read Guy’s final note, “What Happened to…”, where he tells of the further adventures of some of the pilgrims he met on the way, that I realized how much I had been drawn into his Camino. I really felt like I was reading about people I knew personally! As Guy made his journey at the age of seventy, his book will be especially affirming to those who wonder if they’ve still got it in them to hike across Spain.