Pomier - part of the Saint Jacques de Compostelle pilgrimage

From Pomier walk

It is starting to get warm - and the thought of a cool walk in the woods suddenly became very attractive one day. Pomier, half way up the Saleve offers some great walks through the cool woods and a little history with the Chartreuse de Pomier and more importantly being part of the famous pigrimage of Saint Jacques de Compostelle.


Chartreuse de Pomier (from Wikipedia)

From Pomier walk

The charterhouse was founded in 1170 by Willian I, Count of Geneva, and was subsequently used as a place of burial by a number of Counts of Geneva and Vaud. It was visited by the Emperors Sigismund and Charles IV, who put it under Imperial protection. In the course of its history it had 91 priors.

In 1793 it was pillaged during the French Revolution, and the religious structures ruined; the site was sold off into private ownership. At various times it was used for the production of pottery and as a brewery, before being put to agricultural uses. In 1894, Jérémie Girod bought the site from the then owner, the Baron de Drée, and from the ruins was able to restore the main building for use as an hotel, which under the name Hôtel Pension Abbaye de Pomier remained in business till 1991. The present and newly restored Chartreuse de Pomier, consisting of the cellars, and the chapter rooms on the ground floor, is now an event and conference venue.

From Pomier walk

The Way of St. James or St. James' Way (Saint Jacques de Compostelle) (is the pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tradition has it that the remains of the apostle St James are buried.

From Pomier walk

The route of the pilgimage is marked with scallops shells nailed to trees..

From Pomier wal

The significance of the scallop symbol (from Wikipedia)

The scallop shell, typically found on the shores in Galicia, has long been the symbol of the Camino de Santiago. Over the centuries the scallop shell has taken on mythical, metaphorical and practical meaning.

There are different accounts of the mythical origin of the symbol. Which account is taken depends on who is telling the story. Two versions of the most common myth are:

James the Greater, the brother of John, was killed in Jerusalem for his convictions about his brother. James had spent some time preaching on the Iberian Peninsula.

1. (version 1) After James' death, his disciples shipped his body to the Iberian Peninsula to be buried in what is now Santiago. Off the coast of Spain a heavy storm hit the ship, and the body was lost to the ocean. After some time, however, the body washed ashore undamaged, covered in scallops.
2. (version 2) After James' death his body was mysteriously transported by a ship with no crew back to the Iberian Peninsula to be buried in what is now Santiago. As James' ship approached land, a wedding was taking place on the shore. The young bridegroom was on horseback, and on seeing the ship approaching, his horse got spooked, and the horse and rider plunged into the sea. Through miraculous intervention, the horse and rider emerged from the water alive, covered in seashells.

Besides being the mythical symbol, the scallop shell also acts as a metaphor. The grooves in the shell, which come together at a single point, represent the various routes pilgrims traveled, eventually arriving at a single destination: the tomb of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela. The scallop shell is also a metaphor for the pilgrim. As the waves of the ocean wash scallop shells up on the shores of Galicia, God's hand also guided the pilgrims to Santiago.

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Chartreuse de Pomier (from Wikipedia)

The Way of St James (from Wikipedia)

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