Spanish Steps

Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods meets Monty Python and the Holy Grail. With a donkey.

Being larger than a cat, the donkey falls into that category of animal that Tim Moore is at least slightly scared of. Yet, intrigued by epic accounts of a pilgrimage undertaken by one in three medieval Europeans, and strangely committed to historical authenticity, he finds himself leading a Pyrenean ass named Shinto into Spain, headed for Santiago de Compostela.

Nuzzling businessmen at a city-centre zebra crossing, or shuffling after some policewomen across a broiled and lonely plain, the pair bring a smile to every local face. Over 500 miles of extreme weather, agonizing bestial sloth and triple-bunk dormitories, it becomes memorably apparent that for the multinational band of eccentrics who keep the Santiagan flame alive, the pilgrimage has evolved from a purely devotional undertaking into a mobile therapist’s couch.

Ludicrous, heart-warming and improbably inspirational, Spanish Steps is the story of what happens when a rather silly man tries to walk all the way across a very large country, with a very large animal who doesn’t really want to.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Tim Moore is the author of French Revolutions and Do Not Pass Go.


From the Trade Paperback edition.