Complete with her harp, called ‘Sean', on her back, Clonakilty's Anja Bakker is walking from Clonakilty to Rome in the spirit of medieval bardic harpers who undertook the same journey.
COMPLETE with her harp, called ‘Sean’, on her back, Clonakilty’s Anja Bakker is walking from Clonakilty to Rome in the spirit of medieval bardic harpers who undertook the same journey.
Living in Clonakilty for the past 21 years Canadian Anja is well known throughout West Cork for playing her harp.
She began her trek from outside O’Donovan’s Hotel in Clonakilty last Saturday, with plenty of well-wishers to see her off, and she plans to travel 3,500km through Ireland, Wales, England, France and Switzerland, hoping to land in Rome at the end of September.
‘It looks worse than it is, with Sean on my back, but it’s a pilgrimage for me and I’m replicating what happened in the Middle Ages when young men did this with their harps on their backs,’ Anja told The Southern Star.
‘I did the same things eight years ago and walked to Santiago de Compostela with Sean. There is a holy trinity of pilgrimage that includes Santiago, Rome and Jerusalem, and my dream is to also do that some day.’ Anja will be providing weekly blog updates and music at www.flautingharper.com.
