The Telegraph
It’s the ultimate destination for social distancing: an island off the tip of the Llyn Peninsula, North Wales, with a couple of wardens, a colony of basking grey seals and a host of migrating seabirds. But, as Wales celebrates its patron saint, David, today, a journey to Bardsey Island offers more than just splendid isolation on a national nature reserve. It’s a myth-shrouded odyssey into Wales’ 12th-century golden age of pilgrimage. When Pope Callixtus II decreed three pilgrimages to Bardsey to be equivalent to one to Rome, it sparked a faithful scramble to the remote Llyn Peninsula that lasted until The Reformation. The medieval writer Gerald of Wales first noted the large number of pilgrims blazing a sandal-clad trail to Bardsey in 1188, many of them believing that to die on the island idyll would guarantee them a place in heaven. That’s why Bardsey is still known as the isle of 20,000 saints. I spent three days walking the trail before lockdown, embarking on my own private pilgrimage in the footsteps of the ancient saints. The route now forms part of the North Wales Pilgrims’ Way from Holywell to Bardsey, a route peppered with the ancient stone cairns, sacred springs and pilgrim churches, but I was focusing on the later stages. Based in self-catering accommodation in Aberdaron, I followed the Wales Coast Path, tackling a series of day walks and circular trails, before embarking on the wave-washed boat trip across Bardsey Sound. “Bardsey comes at you with all the senses: the sound of nature, the view west across the sea with the mountains behind, and the sense of ancient spirituality,” says Peter Hewlett, who arranges walking trips around the Llyn. “It feels defiantly lost in time.”
Yahoo Style