In the 1140s, a French scholar named Aymeric Picaud compiled what is widely considered the world’s first travel guide: Book V of the Codex Calixtinus. It told pilgrims which routes to walk, where to find shelter, which rivers would poison their horses — and even flagged the locals likely to fleece an unwary traveller. Eight hundred years before TripAdvisor, the Camino already had warnings about bad food and dodgy operators.
The Codex lived quietly in Santiago Cathedral for centuries. Then, in July 2011, it simply vanished from its reinforced case. Spanish police feared an international art-theft ring. The reality was rather more domestic: a former cathedral electrician, fired after twenty-five years, had quietly walked off with it — along with around €2.4 million skimmed from collection boxes over the years. The priceless manuscript was eventually found in his garage, wrapped in bin bags and newspaper. It survived, undamaged, the first travel guide in history briefly relegated to storage among the gardening tools.
