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Visiting the towns of Roses & EmpuriaBrava -the Catalan Venice |Great Mediterranean Coast Hike Day 9
We spent a quiet night in the campground Empurdanes and had a good sleep. We felt a bit lazy to start a day very early so we woke up only at 8am when it was starting to lighten up. We were hearing the song of starlings during all morning and it was very nice and pleasant. The campground itself was a bit too expensive for what it was, for the kind of facilities it provided, how small it was and how bare were the pitches with almost no grass. But maybe it was the expensive area that we yet had to find out. So we made our usual camping routine,…
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We are back on GREAT MEDITERRANEAN COAST HIKE in Costa Brava, Spain! | Day 8 – Cadaqués to Roses
This is our Day 8 of Great Mediterranean Coast Hike when we 3 years later got back to the trail in Cadaqués where we left it. This hike follows mostly the GR92 trail but we were going to make it our own and planned to hike as close to the coastline as possible making any deviations needed. We were going to hike from Cadaqués to Lloret de Mar passing through Roses, L´Escala, Palamos, Castell Platja d´Aro etc, many beautiful cliffs and beaches covering around 150 kms in total. We planned to do it in 7 or 8 days making 15 to 20 kms a day. That 8th day we were…
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Our Exciting Final day of GR11 Getting to the Cantabrian Sea in Irun, Basque Country | Day 18
That day was the last day of our hike and we planned to do 10kms or so to the town Irun going mostly downhill but not excluding some small uphills of course. So we expected the day to be quite easy and that’s why didn’t have to hurry and wanted to enjoy the trail thoroughly. Sure enough, it was our decision to divide the trail in shorter stages and thus do it in more days. As we have seen the offered stages on the signs were doing 25+kms per day and as a result doing almost 3 of our planned days in one. But to us the more important was…
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Spectacular Wild Camp Spot on GR11 and Sharing our Real Camping Routine | Basque Country Hiking Day 17
That day we didn’t have a big plan and thought of doing only 7 or 8kms further down the trail. We wanted to make it a chill out and relaxed day and to have time to recover more before the last major day of the hike. Also we had an idea to film more of our camping routine that normally we simply don’t have time and powers for. We got up later that day at around 7.30am because we had a bad sleep and couldn’t rest very well. We again were camping under the beech and oak trees that were very cinematic looking in any time of the day. The…
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We finally can see the oceancoast! Hiking multinational area on GR11 Day 16 in Navarra, Spain
For that day we planned to get to the village Bera and Zalain to do some grocery shopping as we began lacking essential food supplies and still had 2 days left of the trail. It was Sunday so we knew that there was a risk of not finding any open shops or supermarkets open but at least if we came early before 13pm there was some chance. So overall we had to do around 14kms that day getting down first and then coming up away from the village. That night wasn’t very comfortable because of uneven terrain and thus we didn’t get enough recovering sleep. In addition, there were many…
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The camping trouble on GR11 and hiking endless hills with magnificent views| Day 15 in Navarra, Spain
The day started with the beautiful morning in the beech forest. The night was very calm and warm with no wind and no other sounds rather than the sheep bells. We woke up early at 6.30am in order to begin the day at 8am that was a goal in which we succeeded. We quickly wrapped up our stuff, had breakfast and packed the tent. The beginning of the trail was already familiar to us as we stretched further the day before. So we collected water from the clean source and filled all our water bottles and were good to go. At first, we had to do the 117m climb to…
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Spectacular hiking trail through the green hills and forests in Basque Country | Day 13 of GR11
We had a big plan for the day to do 16kms and looking at the terrain map we saw that it would be quite challenging with lots of ups and downs and 500m of elevation change. We just hoped for the weather to help us to cover all the distance. We woke up with the sound of the owl in the scenic spot we found the day before. We had a peaceful night there with no wind and no other sounds. The spot was wonderful because on one side we had the river stream and on the other beautiful beech forest growing on the steep slope of the hill. The…
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Magical foggy beech forest and crossing with the Camino Frances in Auritz-Burguete on GR11 | Day 12 to Sorrogain
The plan for the day was to do 15kms and make 400m of elevation change both up and down. Looking at the map we didn’t expect the day to be too difficult. We had one of the quietest nights in the dense forest where there was little wind and quite warm and that’s why we were able to sleep good. In the morning we felt refreshed and energized and tried to do our routine as fast as possible. So first we needed to get to the town Auritz Burguete to resupply in the supermarket and we had only 3km left to it. The trail went straight through the fields and…
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Are we about to quit the GR11? – Surviving the extreme night and making big decisions | Day 9 Lake Montcasau to Arties
On the day 9 of GR11 we made 11kms hiking down the valley from Lake Montcasau to Plan de Nera and river Valarties and finally came to the village Arties in Catalonia, Pyrenees, Spain. For this day it was clear that we won’t be able to do much distance and also because we felt like having a rest we decided to turn away from GR11 at the point where it was climbing up again and turn to the opposite direction to the village Arties. That way we still were going to do around 11kms. There we hoped to have a couple day rest at the campsite and return back to…
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EXTREME FATIGUE on the BRUTAL terrain of GR11-Where will we stop for the night? |Day 8.2 Pass de Ratera to Lake Montcasau
In the second half of the Day 8 of GR11 we were getting through Estany i Sant Maurici National Park in Catalan Pyrenees, Spain hiking through many lakes, climbing over the 2600m high Pass de la Ratera, to the Refugi de Colomers and Lake Montcasau. Without pausing for too long in the shade we were ready to tackle the last portion of the uphill. It was steep and many times we were out of breath more so because of the very hot weather and we were sweating a lot too. Even the wind wasn’t cool enough to help it which was unusual for this altitude. So we continued on and…
