Pyrenees vacation - a self-guided experiment
Wednesday, March 7, 2012 at 18:00 (Sorry for the lapses in posting here - I'm back in action. Thanks for understanding - Herr J)
Do you remember that I asked Frau A to marry me at Oktoberfest? She said Yes, and the very next day we left for a week-long hiking trip. This trip was destined to be interesting because it was a hybrid between a guided tour and a do-it-yourself vacation. Here's how it worked:
A German travel company called Wikireisen offers multi-day hiking packages that go from hotel to hotel (or hut to hut) through the Alps or Pyrenees. They offer other trips as well (biking, walking, etc.) in many different countries around Europe. The idea is that they provide the structure of the trip, but you're not constrained to being herded with a group each day. They call it "individualized travel". They book the hotels (your start and end points each day), provide maps and outline the hiking routes, but you hike the route on your terms.
What made it appealing to us is that the plan details are (supposedly) fully and professionally prepared, but you execute it as you want. Are you a late sleeper? Most hikes each day are 5-6 hours, so just start at 10:30 and you'll be in the next town by dinner. Frau A and I planned to start earlier, because we take so many photos that it slows us down. In the heavy tourist season, many people will be booked in the same hotels, but would depart and arrive according to their hiking speed and preferences. A pretty interesting concept, right?
So the next morning after the Oktoberfest proposal, we flew from Munich to Barcelona.
We selected a hiking plan through the Pyrenees, so upon arriving in Barcelona we took the train from the airport to the main station. We bought tickets, and hopped the next train to Setcases, Spain:
The adventure we bought from Wikireisen included 5 hikes:
Day 1: Setcases (Spain) to Mollo (Spain)
Day 2: Mollo (Spain) to Prats de Mollo (France)
Day 3: Taxi from Mollo to Coll de Noell (France), from there to Amelie le Bains (France)
Day 4: Amelie le Bains (France) to Ceret (France)
Day 5: Ceret (France) to Banyuls sur Mer (France)
In short, this would take us over 5 days from the Pyrenees to the French Mediterranean coast. Very cool.
We were quite excited when we finally arrived in Setcases, so before dinner we walked around the small town a bit.
In addition to the stone buildings, there were some water passages that (we think) help direct mountain run off.
A few stores were open, but we weren't there for shopping. (Although the olive oil looked quite tempting.)
We weren't sure if this was the home of someone who loves plants and flowers, or a closed flower shop.
Setcases is quaint, but we took a quick dinner so we would be ready to start early the next morning. The hiking directions were in German, so that made things a bit more complicated. Frau A speaks Spanish, but neither of us speak French, so local help could be an issue at some point...
In the next posts, we'll share a hike-by-hike account of the adventure. Lots of photos. Stay tuned,.
Reader Comments (1)
We did a guided hotel to hotel hike in Switzerland. The company also offered self-directed hikes in various countries. We always said we'd try one. Will anxiously await the rest of the story.