During our two week tour we will meet dozens of other pilgrims traveling by bicycle or on foot. But for most of the tour it seems that our group is unique in one respect: we are the only ones who have a 9-passenger van carrying our luggage (and some of us, if it were necessary) and spent the night in private hotel rooms. All the rest carry their own supply of clothes, bedding and, often, camping gear and spend the night either in dormitory-style hospices or camp outdoors. (Near the end of the trip we do run into one other tour – a group of Germans – who are being supported by a van.)

Let me describe the normal pattern of a day for us “luxury pilgrims.”

Every morning we meet for breakfast in our hotel’s dining area at 8:30, which, we have been told, is about the earliest you can find any sort of breakfast in Spain. Breakfast for most Spanish people is rarely more than coffee and a pastry, but to meet the nutritional needs of us cyclists, all our hotels provide juice, two to four kinds of cold cuts, cheese, yogurt and fruit, as well as bread, jam, pastries, and café con leche (espresso with warm milk) and sometimes also cold cereal. We bring our luggage down to the van by 9:30, by which time the hotel garage where our bikes are stored is open and we are free to leave at our own pace. Fred and Marion, the most competitive riders, always bolt out first and are never seen again during the day by most of us. The rest of us drift out by twos or threes. Except for a couple days when there is an important landmark to be seen by a certain hour, I am one of the last to begin riding. I never feel any urgent need to get anywhere. After the first couple days I know that at my normal riding pace I will pass almost any of the other riders eventually, but also I will periodically fall behind all of them as I linger in a town to inspect the architecture and the antiquities or stop and backtrack along the road to compose a photograph.

Due to a system devised by our tour company, Experience Plus, navigating is surprisingly easy, even if we are not traveling in a pack and do not each have a personal guide. There are three guides, and one sets out early each morning on bicycle with several water bottles filled with powdered chalk. Every place where there is more than one option about which way to ride – at every city intersection, highway interchange, or crossing of country roads – they mark several big chalk arrows directing us whether to continue straight or to make a turn. On long straighaways they mark an arrow about every 5 km (or in towns, every few blocks) to assure us that we’re on the right course. Although it does happen that a rider, deep in thought or engaged in conversation with another pilgrim, overlooks the arrows at an intersection and misses a turn, he or she should eventually notice – after riding 10 or 15 minutes without a confirming arrow – that they must have missed a turn. Then they retrace their path until they find the arrows again.

As a secondary navigation system, each of us carries a detailed Michelin road map with our exact route marked with a colored felt-tip pen (provided we have taken the effort to copy the route from the master map that is on display at the hotel every morning and evening). On top of that, we each carry a one-page “day sheet” that describes the highlights of the day’s ride, suggests places to stop for lunch, and lists the “towns for navigation” that we will pass through. Add to those techniques an intelligent tracking system. A second guide rides as “sweep,” always riding with the trailing member of the group. (Unless that happens to be me. The guides quickly learn that I dawdle a lot but always catch up, so they choose to accompany the person riding second to the last.) And the third guide drives the van, carrying the luggage and spare parts for the bikes. This person drives back and forth from the head to the tail of the group several times during the day, keeping track of where each rider is and offering assistance if necessary.

Having chalk to write with also gives our lead guide the opportunity to mark with capital letters minor landmarks or interesting viewpoints (“LOOK”), recommended places to get FOOD, or fountains where we can fill our bottles with H2O. If I happen upon FOOD as noon approaches I will follow the Spanish tradition (and my own) of having a “second breakfast” of coffee and pastry. Unfortunately, because none of the other riders is as interested in this custom, half the mornings go by without presenting this opportunity. Two o’clock is the normal lunchtime in Spain, and, as it happens, I’m often reaching one of the suggested lunch stops around this time. Often some of the other riders are finishing lunch and ready to move on by this time. And Frank “Pancho” eventually decides that he can get by all day on a Power Bar and an energy drink and winds up bypassing lunch altogether. Nevertheless, I usually manage to find some company for at least part of the meal.

On the eight days when we ride at least 70 km (out of twelve total riding days), I wind up checking in to the hotel between 4:00 and 6:00 in the afternoon. That gives me several hours to shower, explore the town’s highlights on my own, rest or write a journal entry. Due to restaurant opening hours we follow the custom of meeting for dinner at 9 pm (still long before sunset), either on the typical nights when dinner is included as part of the tour or on the few nights when we’re on our own to choose our own company and restaurant. In three of the towns (Roncesvalles, Puente La Reina and Touro) the best, or only, dining option is right at the hotel; in the remaining towns we take a short walk (or, in one case, ride a few km in the van) to a restaurant. At the end of dinner, as we enjoy our dessert with coffee or herbal tea, Loreto, who is the guide most familiar with the tour, hands out day sheets and briefs us about tomorrow’s agenda. Because of the late dining hour and the leisurely pace of the evening meal, midnight is usually approaching when we return to our rooms.