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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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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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Bird and Animal Paradise in Elizondo and the Origin of the Basque Language | Day 14 of GR11
The plan for the day was to do the 5.5km downhill of 500m to the town Elizondo and then stretch further from it for 7km more climbing up the same amount of kms. In total we had to do 13kms. So it sounded like it could be quite challenging especially counting that we would do our shopping in town and go uphill fully loaded. But we hoped for the best and that the uphill won’t be too steep. That night we didn’t sleep very well because the spot we found the day before was very uneven and was located on the slope. But nevertheless because of how tired we were…
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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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Tiny pretty Basque villages and rocky climbing on GR11 in Navarra, Spain | Day 11 from Hiriberri to Auritz
We had a bit of disturbing night at the wild camp spot we found close to the village Hiriberri because it was extremely windy and at times there were very strong gusts of wind that were waking us up. But nevertheless we managed to get few hours of sleep and were determined to start the day early. As we had a pretty big plan – to do 17kms again, walk through two villages, climbing the steep 600m uphill and come to the village Auritz. We did change our plan a little bit the evening before so that we have the water sources nearby our potential camp spot. And we hoped…
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Excited to start again with GR11 in Navarra, Spain and Camino del Norte vibes | Day 10 Ochagavia, Sierra de Abodi, Hiriberri
After having an extreme heat wave in the mountains for a week or so in Catalonia province we have decided to move to a different region Navarra, village Ochagavia and start our GR11 trail again there hoping that the weather would be cooler. Also we liked the idea to start the GR trail in Navarra because that way we’ll be able to walk until the ocean coast and finish the route there. As we have been missing the ocean quite a lot since the time of our last Camino. To our calculation, it should have taken us 9 or 10 days to get to the coast. The plan for that…
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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…
