Great Mediterranean Coast Hike in Occitanie, France | Day 3 – Nature reserve Cerbère-Banyuls

After having a really nice rest the day before in the camping La Pine we woke up to the new day all ready to hit the trail again. We had a really quiet night here listening to nightingales and we liked the camping overall. It is located on different levels with lots of space for the tents and lots of big trees so it almost feels like you’re in the forest. And it was nearly empty in that season in the end of May.

The morning was quite foggy and humid and it looked like it could be a rainy day which we were really afraid of because our video camera is not waterproof and that meant having day off shooting.

We had our quinoa and salad for breakfast and were good to go. We weren’t in a rush at all because of the weather and by the time we left the camping the sky started to get more clear.

So the plan for the day was getting to the outskirts of the town of Cerbere – almost on the French-Spanish border where our next camping site was. It was around 10 km but it’s really hard to count cause we followed the most curvy route along the seaside.

So we walked through the town of Banyuls-sur-Mer with its sandy coloured houses and red roofs and got out to the port area from where we could see the panorama of the whole town.

We said goodbye to the town and continued to follow the yellow signed trail heading to Cerbere. It was very convenient without having to check the navigation all the time. Overall the trail is extremely well signed starting from Argeles-sur-Mer to Cerbere so we can’t recommend it enough.

Right at the beginning we faced an obstacle in the form of the closed gate and sign of the private property on the way. So we couldn’t progress further along the coast and had to do a round following the car road. But luckily it wasn’t very long and we were back on the trail after a km or so.

At that moment the weather was getting overcast and it became harder to breathe. So the air felt very stuffy that made harder to walk.

As we continued on we met lots of stunning scenery with the beautiful rocky cliffs and waves crushing into them, the relief was absolutely amazing.

The cliffs we were going through were quite steep and high constantly forcing us to go up and down. There were lots of steps as well that were definetely killing our legs. But when you go cliff after cliff and every time it opens up to a different view you merely notice all these difficulties.

Sometimes it almost felt like we were at the oceanside, so breathtaking were the places. We took our time to just sit and enjoy the view breathing the fresh salty air and immersing ourselves into this beauty.

Also we enjoyed having so much greenery around with the most wonderful multicolored flowers and plants. The variety of it was incredible. Lots of vineyards were a dominating part of landscape as well.

We’ve noticed that there weren’t too much animal variety like we used to have in the mountains, deer for instance and we started to miss them. But we think that’s because it wasn’t the forest environment and it’s just not their habitat.

So this day left lots of great memories and was for sure the highlight of the whole hike. At the end of the day a bit tired we were getting to the camping close to Cerbere and we still didn’t know what challenge we’ll be facing soon…

Here is the link to Google map to follow the hike: