Hiking report

Weekend trip to the Pyrenees!

After the weekend trip to Ax les Thermes two years ago, I always thought about going to the Pyrenees again. There was one obvious choice for me: to go along the HRP, which is a hiking trail that goes along the Pyrenees. I did part of it 3 years ago and was truly amazed. Unfortunately there are not so many train stations along the HRP, but this time I managed to create a route, with a stay in a mountain hut and in the city of Pas de la Casa, which lies right at the border between Andorra and France. This appears to me like a perfect plan.

I booked everything around the Christmas time. Especially the refuge guarding seemed super troubled as I was basically trying to make a booking more than half a year in advance.

As I also made a lot of advertisements about the Pyrenees, quite some new people joined. Among the 10 people that signed up in the end, only Kartik and I went there on the last trip.

I was also very much looking forward to the mountain hut experience. I had it only a few times before, and they were all in the Alps and organized by someone else. I was very much interested to see it in the Pyrenees. As many people also didn’t have much experience with refuges, I also had to explain that they had to take bed liner and so on.

With all this, we were basically all super well prepared. Finally a proper multi-day hiking trip this year, we thought.

Of course, things never go right here in Germany, especially if you try to travel by train. This time we felt this fact with huge pain.

The problem started even a day before we started traveling. Mehrbod was planning to go to the Pyrenees one day in advance, pretty much with the same connection as we did. His train for Paris, however, skipped Cologne Central, with no announcement whatsoever. The German railway apparently offered a hotel, but as he wanted to leave camping stuff he was not able to use anymore at his place, he went back Siegen, where he lives.

Around 12 hours later, we got a message from the German Railway saying our train to Paris was starting from Cologne Central, skipping Düsseldorf Central. I felt we were so lucky to have this information a few hours in advance. But at the same time, we also didn’t feel like we could trust the German Railway, so Soumil and I, along with other people decided to take a very early regional train to go to Aachen, which is the last stop for our line before leaving Germany. Kartik and Cláudia, probably because they didn’t have other options, decided to enter the train in Cologne Central. With a delay of 1h, they managed to do so. In the meantime, we were totally stuck somewhere between Cologne and Aachen. Not only our train was having a huge delay, but also it got cancelled in Düren, which is right in the middle of Cologne and Aachen. We thought about taking a taxi using Mobilitätsgarantie, but it turned out that it was more expensive than the cost that would be covered by it. We took the RE 7 that came after our RE 1. Here, it’s important to keep in mind that RE 7 is not meant to carry a large number of people, and especially it was hopelessly smaller than the RE 1. Now all of a sudden, there were all passengers from RE 1 and the ones who were already on RE 7, making the train hopelessly overcrowded. Three of us, Soumil, Hilal and I, still managed to enter the train, but a few stops later we heard from Mehrbod that he couldn’t enter the train at Langerwehe (which was a few stops after Düren). Our was just so overpacked that you wouldn’t even imagine it in the subway in Tokyo in the 90s. Mehrbod was by the way starting the day a lot earlier, but was still stuck in Langerwehe. We were arriving in Aachen just in time for our train to Paris. Mehrbod in the meantime had declared that he was giving up, as the next train from Langerwehe was not making it in time for our train to Paris at Aachen. Meanwhile, we were getting updates from Cláudia and Kartik. Especially, they told us that the train was heading to Mönchengladbach, which is not at all the direction for Aachen. On top of this, it was running very very very slowly. As the arrival time at Aachen was not being updated, I asked Cláudia to share their location. They were right: the train was in Mönchengladbach. That was incredible, because the train was supposed to be already in Aachen with a delay of more than 1h, but the reality was that it was in Mönchengladbach with hardly moving anywhere, so there was no way for the train to arrive in Aachen within at least 30 min. As soon as we realized it, we contacted Mehrbod again, who was determined to go back to Siegen, but fortunately or unfortunately he couldn’t because there was simply no train in both directions. After some time, he managed to join us in Aachen, which was still a lot earlier than the arrival of the train for Paris.

In the meantime at the platform, we were dealing with French and British people, who were totally helpless. That makes sense, because the German Railway never gave any update. So according to the information that was available to us, the train had been gone for more than 30 min ago. It was also painfully clear to me that they were in Germany for the first time for work or UEFA and were only going back home. We spontaneously decided to explain everyone around us what was going on, because fortunately we were getting live updates from Cláudia and Kartik, but then we had to explain them that this kind of delay is totally normal in Germany. The French guy right next to me was totally puzzled, because I told him that the train was moving, but not arriving. For him, this phrase just didn’t make sense: the train is either not moving or moving and therefore arriving. It just doesn’t make sense that a train is moving but not arriving. Yes, that makes sense in Germany – a train might be moving but just as fast as a pedestrian. No one really knows why this happens, but it happens.

And so, the train finally arrived. As soon as it arrived, we had to start talking about what are the next steps. What was clear was that we were going to miss the night train to the Pyrenees, meaning we were definitely unable to follow our original plan.

There were multiple possibilities: 1, we rent a car; 2, we take the earliest train in the morning; 3, we continue our journey 24h later. The option 1 fell apart fairly quickly as we found out that there was no car rental available around midnight. For both 2 and 3, there was the problem that some people did not have one ticket to the Pyrenees, making it in principle impossible to claim the right to go there. The difference between 2 and 3 was little, as we were anyway going to arrive in the Pyrenees relatively late in the afternoon even if we were going to take the earliest train in the morning. Nevertheless we voted for this one, because at least we could be in the Pyrenees and not in Paris, which not necessarily everyone has seen before, but somehow everyone already hated it.

At the same time, there was something really weird going on. The staff started distributing water and food on the train, but there was not enough personnel. Instead, we simply took over their work and started distributing food and water. The ticket inspector was very thankful, as there was simply no one else who would have done it from the train staff. Apparently so much so that he started issuing certificates for all of us which would enable us to take any train to go to the Pyrenees. This looked just like a piece of paper to me in that moment, only to realize how much power it had a few hours later.

In the meantime, we decided to take the earliest train from Paris to the Pyrenees. We also managed to get a hotel room, although we got different hotels. Unfortunately the train station of the first train was not the same as the one for the night train: For the night train we were supposed to travel from Paris-Austerlitz, while the first train in the morning was from Paris-Montparnasse. We all got a hotel close to Paris-Austerlitz, which had no interest, because it was not even on the way from Gare du Nord, where we arrived from Germany, and Paris-Montparnasse.

By the way I have to say we were so impressed by the speed when the train entered Belgium. It was indeed a high-speed train.

As I already stated above, we arrived in Paris close to midnight. We were exhausted when we arrived at the hotel. The only thing I was happy about was the price: the ordinary price of the room I got was more than 200€. Fine, it’s just super overpriced because it’s Paris. Nevertheless, it was a kind of a nice experience in this regard. The guy at the reception, who knew English but continued speaking French, was amused by the lack of names in the reservations, as we were simply called delay 1 delay 2 etc. The booking included breakfast, which we could not take because it was too early. Somehow we had to pay the tourist tax ourselves (5,20 € per person). I don’t know if this can be reimbursed, but I don’t think I’m ready to waste my time on this.

I just took a shower and went to bed. God it seemed to me like a horribly long day.

Day II

As we wanted to take an early train, we obviously had to wake up fairly early in the morning. In my case it was 5:30am. I just gathered all the stuff and left the room. The others were having impromptu breakfast. I simply got what I could get and we left the place.

We arrived at the station like 20 min before the train departure, except for Mehrbod, who didn’t know that it was Montparnasse. So he apparently went to Austerlitz and waited there until it was too late. The ticket inspector from yesterday had guaranteed that we can take the train today, but the ticket counter was closed. I simply approached the staff from the train that we wanted to take. They let us enter the train without further explanation, after I showed the piece of paper that I got yesterday. That’s super unusual for France, because you cannot take a high-speed train without a seat reservation there. This time, however, they told us that the ticket inspectors there would organize seats inside the train. I’ve never heard anything like this in my 5 years of stay in France in the past. Anyway, that’s what we got so we simply took this train and started our journey first to Bordeaux. Mehrbod, on the other hand, found a train going to Toulouse, where we would have to change trains to go to the Pyrenees, which was arriving in Toulouse just 6 min before the departure of the train for the Pyrenees. If it was Germany there was no way to catch it, but I was sure that he was going to make it, because it’s France and the trains are punctual. I never really thought about it when I was living in France, taking it as granted. Now living in Germany I feel strongly how great it actually was.

In Bordeaux, I went to the ticket counter first, to get a proper ticket for the Pyrenees. Again, I just showed the piece of paper that I had and the rest took place automatically. We did not even need to show anything else there. As there was also a frequent traveler lounge there, I got a cup of coffee. Obviously we could take our train for Toulouse without a problem.

We had lunch in Toulouse. As we had only a bit more than 1h, we couldn’t choose a proper restaurant. We simply chose one quite randomly nearby. I usually really like lunch in French restaurants, because usually they usually just have one menu for lunch, and that’s usually what the chef is good at or what they get from the market in the morning etc. This time, it was not particularly good, but at the same time I was happy to have a bit of French culture again.

Mehrbod’s train arrived also without a problem, and we all took the train for the Pyrenees as we planned, even though there was a delay of around 7 hours from the original plan. Thank you very much German Railway.

We could see how the scenery was changing from the train to the Pyrenees. It was just so beautiful to see the mountains growing around us more and more.

It appeared almost surreal when we arrived at Porté Puymorens, where we started hiking. As soon as we got out of the train, we started screaming out of joy. I’m sure that people on the train understood nothing.

So here was the plan: Instead of going to the mountain hut, we would go to Pas de la Casa, which we were supposed to reach on the second day. We stay in the hotel for two nights. We would also have a full day for a hike. Perfect, isn’t it?

According to the weather forecast, today was the only day with a great weather. I really wanted to curse the German Railway for largely ruining it. Anyway it was true that the weather was really great, and I also enjoyed the landscape. Here in France, there are a lot more fields than in Germany. I’ve talked about it a few times before, but the advantage is that you can see the surrounding area really well. On top of this, at this height, which is more than 2,000 m but lower than 3,000 m, you can see that you are in high mountains, but it is also largely green. Frankly I don’t understand why people want to go higher and higher, because after 3,000 m it is just rock for me.

Towards the beginning of the hike I realized that some people were not correctly carrying their backpacks. I have to admit that I’m definitely not an expert of this field, but at least I know the basics, and I remember how some people were suffering quite badly when we went to the Alps a few years ago. Some of them listened to me, and they managed the hike really well. Others didn’t, and they kept suffering till the end of the trip. I gave a super quick introduction into how to tighten the belts. It takes only a minute or so, and it totally changes everything. I should probably do it more often whenever we have a larger hiking trip like this one.

I was a little bit worried about some of the participants, because they are not regularly joining the hikes these days. But all of us made it fairly well. As a matter of fact, the track was a lot easier than I had initially feared. We were in a way very lucky that it was so easy to make a Plan B so quickly, although “lucky” is maybe not the kind of word that I can use in our situation…

There were nice spots every now and then. Especially with a lot of water. I’m sure we could have made really beautiful photos if the sun had still been there. I hope the ones you see here are still convincing enough.

There were wild horses on the way. One of them even approached me. I wonder whether they sometimes get food from the hikers here.

It was getting slightly dark, when we arrived in Andorra. While Andorra is a landlocked country between Spain and France, it is not part of the EU. Therefore, our phones from Germany do not work there. Mehrbod made us aware of this point a few weeks in advance, and Arjuwan did a great job to look up eSIM for Andorra. It was around 4€ for one week for 1 GB. I’m just so glad that the technology made so much progress in the last years that there’s a possibility like this nowadays, even though I almost want to complain that eSIM is coming so ultra slowly. With Apple forcing companies to use eSIM, hopefully the physical SIM is going to be entirely abolished soon. Anyway, my eSIM worked without any problem as soon as I arrived in Andorra, and I could use the internet everywhere during our stay there.

Our hotel was right in the city center in front of the market place. Arjuwan had already taken a key for her room, which she shared with Bambina. All the others squeezed ourselves into two rooms.

There was some sort of festival in the market place. We thought about having dinner there, but it turned out to be a limited place where you had to get a ticket in advance. So we simply went to a nearby restaurant and ordered some random food. Obviously we shared a few liters of sangria. It’s so nice to see such an international group, because some people simply don’t know what sangria is. I guess they will remember it after this weekend.

Pas de la Casa, which is where we stayed, is a famous ski resort. So while you can hardly find anyone native to there, there are a lot of people coming from Spain and France. When I was there last time a few years ago, I got the feeling that people were speaking French. But today I saw that basically everyone was speaking Spanish. The local language is Catalan, which I think is a lot closer to Spanish, so it kind of makes sense.

When we got back to the market place, we saw that the fences were removed and people were starting to dance. There was also a stage and some performance, with dances from around the world, although it looked super sketchy, but who cares because it was really fun. Most of the people from our group went back to the hotel quickly because they were too tired. I stayed with Soumil and others, partly because I wanted to stay there until midnight, for Soumil’s birthday. Well, whether it was his birthday or not, the music and dances were so nice that I would have probably stayed anyway XD.

Some time past midnight I went back to the hotel. I was lucky to have ear plugs, but the others apparently didn’t. I slept really really well, but obviously with a festival in front of the hotel there was practically no chance for the others.

Day III

I’m a kind of a person who sleeps fairly well, but it’s still somewhat rare to sleep SO well. I woke up and I felt so extremely fresh this morning. In others’ eyes I could easily see that it wasn’t really the case for everyone.

Cláudia had already looked up a few places for breakfast. One of them was basically a bakery, so we simply went there. I was the first one to arrive, and in front of me there was a French couple ordering coffee in French. I simply followed and ordered coffee and some bread in French. The guy asked me if I speak English. I don’t understand what’s going on in this country. Anyway since I could hear a strong Spanish accent I switched to Spanish, and we simply continued in Spanish.

https://www.komoot.com/de-de/tour/1677594295?share_token=aZ703RPt5aJ6dg92T7xD11T1yM8unoPya1j3MSyfK2xSPznb28&ref=wtd

We first sat outside, but then it quickly started raining. What a sign… The breakfast took like forever, which was actually almost part of the plan because I wanted everyone to be able to have a rest. After all, it didn’t really matter where to go, since we were anyway coming back to Pas de la Casa at the end of the day. Cláudia made a suggestion, so we simply followed it.

Well, this being said, I was a little bit concerned, because it didn’t really look like a proper hiking trail in the first part. My concern was quite quickly justified: The trail was sometimes there, sometimes not, and it was extremely difficult to walk through the field. But on top of this, it also started raining, quite badly time to time. Fortunately I had both rain jacket and rain trousers, but my Decathlon shoes, which are supposedly water tight, gave up quite quickly. At least it was only my feet that were soaked. Giampaolo had nothing at all and was totally wet, although he looked like he had proper hiking shoes, so maybe his feet were actually fine.

We were following a small stream. Frankly it must be a wonderful place if the weather is good. I cannot believe that so many things are going wrong in this trip. This being said, I think we had a really good mood, and we also enjoyed the adventure. Besides the weather got well every now and then, allowing us to enjoy the sunlight and take some beautiful photos as well.

A few times we totally missed the paths, and other times we were just going through bush. I’m glad that we somehow all made it through. Anyway we were a lot slower than what Komoot had predicted: We had merely done 2km after 2h. I don’t think we had ever walked so slowly in the past.

So even though we had done only a fraction of what we had planned, we anyway had a break in the middle of nowhere. There were some rocks where we can somewhat sit. Somehow people had a lot of things to eat and share. A nice moment that solidified our team spirit, especially because we usually don’t share food when we hike in Germany.

We were basically following a small stream all the time. It would have been probably easy if there was a path next to it, but that was unfortunately mostly not the case. Sometimes we were close to it, but then other times we could not even see the stream. I found it anyway really nice that there was clean water all the time next to us, even though we didn’t really need it anyway.

There was one tick that got me. Frankly I didn’t really expect ticks in this area. Apparently I was also the only one who got it.

When we reached around 1/3 we started having a normal path, which was what I was also expecting. I was also expecting the path to be very easy from that moment on. That was also indeed the case. I’m glad that my guess turned out to be right everywhere in this trail.

This being said, we were totally exhausted before we reached the halfway. Cláudia and Kartik basically gave up in that moment and took a shortcut to go back to the city. The rest of us continued – after all I also wanted to reach the top of the mountain, which was around the halfway of the hike today.

It was getting darker and darker, not because the day was going to an end, but because we were entering a thick cloud. At the same time, it was getting so cold that with my rain jacket I still had to keep walking to not freeze. Right before we reached the top, there was some snow. That was kind of impressive.

It was really a pity because we could not see anything from the top. Just to mark the moment we took a few photos. Well the memory will remain, and after all, it was a huge adventure, which we will definitely remember.

I’m not really sure if I talked about it, but the second half was following this thing called Haute Route Pyrenees (HRP), which follows the mountain tops in the Pyrenees. Obviously it’s not a historical path, and was also made relatively recently. So the path was at a certain height all the time, and it was quite an impressive view from there. Again, it was quite cloudy, and most of the time we couldn’t see much, but still there were moments that impressed me.

From the moment we reached the halfway, it felt like instantaneous till the city. The last stretch was going along the ski lane, and we could see the city really nicely from the top. It was a really great view.

I reached the city with a few people, but the others were still hiking. Some of the people started taking a shower. Some of us started looking around for the place for dinner. As there were plenty of options it didn’t take us too much time to think about it. Cláudia chose a nice local restaurant, where we basically also celebrated Soumil’s birthday.

Just like yesterday we ordered a few jars of sangria. It’s such a nice culture to share things. The waiters were also super friendly. Well, this is a ski-resort and it’s probably rather considered as an off-season right now, so maybe partly that’s the reason 😀

During dinner, a horrifying notification first came to Kartik: The train got cancelled. The same one came to Giampaolo. Since all but Pranay and Arjuwan took the same train, I thought our train got entirely cancelled. But it simply didn’t come to the rest of us. As it turned out, only the seat coach got cancelled, but not sleeping coach. As a matter of fact, the message was also written in a way that it’s maybe not entirely cancelled. So confusing, but also so weird that something like this happened with SNCF. Frankly, this trip is filled with problems. I don’t understand what’s going on. Anyway, they all got couchettes, basically the same place as where we were going to be sleeping.

After dinner, we went to the market place again. This time we were all there. There was a huge transition from yesterday’s style: Today was only Spanish pop. As it turned out, I recognised quite a few songs, as I heard them during my study. At one time I could even sing with them.

We stayed there until some time past midnight. I have to say we were dancing like drugged while the other people at the marketplace seemed sober, even though in reality we were totally sober and the people there were drinking. When the Spanish pop was over, there was a DJ playing US songs, in which moment it was not so interesting to me anymore and I simply went to bed. The others apparently stayed a lot longer.

Day IV

I don’t know how the others managed it, but somehow they had earplugs today. So apparently everyone slept fairly well, and looked quite refreshed. I myself slept wonderfully – now two nights in a row. I don’t think I sleep so well even at home.

Today we started moving really sluggishly. That also made sense given the exhaustion from yesterday, and also the fact that there wasn’t much to do today. It was close to 10am when we went to the breakfast place from yesterday. This time the weather was pretty good, and we could sit outside.

As people were coming little by little, I was long done when half of the group had arrived. Since there was also not much space there, I left the place and went for shopping with Giampaolo. I think I wrote it somewhere above, but taxes are really low here in Andorra. So I wanted to see whether I can find some electronics.

Unfortunately, my plan didn’t really flourish – there weren’t the kind of electronics I was looking for there. In particular, they were not so specialised in high-tech stuff. It was pretty much the same as the German electronics shops, but I got the feeling that I was seeing products from 10 years ago. I just don’t understand why…

And like this, we spent the morning very slowly. Some time past 11am, we all got in front of the hotel to start the day. Arjuwan and Pranay left earlier because they had to take an earlier train. We stayed in front of the train a little bit longer, as some people needed a bit more time to get prepared, but also because we still had some jam from the first day, which Arjuwan had bought for breakfast. I then got the idea of buying yoghurt to quickly finish the jam. As it turned out, there are a lot of supermarkets here in Pas de la Casa, but it gets extremely difficult when it comes to buying daily stuff, like fruits or vegetables. Yoghurt was one of them. I had to walk through the city to find a Carrefour, where I could finally find fresh ingredients. I first got 4 yoghurts. They vanished immediately. With farther 4, we also managed to finish the jam. It was a nice teamwork 😀

We then started the hike back to the train station, which was the only one hike that I had planned initially, which was the same one as we did when we came to Pas de la Casa. Out of 1 GB that I had bought for my eSIM, there were still 600 MB remaining. As I wanted to listen to Nino Bravo, who is a Spanish singer, whose songs appeared yesterday in the concert, I downloaded a full compilation of his main songs. In the end, I finished at something 990 MB before I left Andorra. Good job!

Today’s weather was a lot better than yesterday’s, I guess it was comparable to day before yesterday, although we saw only the end of the day.

I was listening to Nino Bravo all the time, thinking about my years at the university. It’s really a pity that we don’t have those Spanish people in the hiking group.

There were again wild horses, and again they approached me. I don’t really have experience with horses, but they seemed to like to be caressed.

We had a break in front of an abandoned barrack. It was apparently used for the coal mining in the past, which may or may not have taken place here. Obviously there was no particular functionality there, so we were just sitting there. I could finally use my solar charger, even though it wasn’t really necessary anyway.

The view was again really amazing from there. We were walking along a valley, where we could see a stream far down. As I already stated above, it was covered with grass fields, so we could see very very far.

I had a short nap break on the way as well, because there were nice rocks when I was really sleepy. Some people stayed there with me because there were a lot of wild horses and cows.

Some time after the break, the weather started to get worse. It was foggy, or maybe we were simply in a cloud. Anyway we couldn’t really see the our surroundings.

There was also a possibility to extend the hike to go to a top of the mountain, but I didn’t want to risk the train. Besides we couldn’t see much anyway because of the fog.

Then we somehow entered a massive forest. It looked almost like we were in a tropical place all of a sudden. The ground was muddy, and the plants were wild. There were also a lot of water sources there. Actually every now and then we didn’t know whether it was just muddy or we were walking in a stream.

We reached the train station sometime past 5pm. Arjuwan and Pranay had just left. We went to a nearby hotel, where I thought about getting dinner, but it turned out that the hotel restaurant was closed on Sundays. But the owner told us that there was a bakery nearby, which should be open. Yes, this bakery was open, and frankly the food was not particularly good, but at least we could get some dinner before we entered the train.

So, we had got this notification that I talked about above, which said that seat coach got cancelled. As it turned out, it was there. So Kartik, Cláudia and Giampaolo could have probably kept their tickets. Besides the conductors were also kind of upset, because it was obvious that the coach was there. Cláudia was pretty mad about it. I hope they could get their money back.

My cabin had 6 beds (just like everywhere). 4 of them were occupied by us. We didn’t know much about the remaining 2, but we assumed that they were unoccupied because the ticket inspectors told us that they should have already arrived in the train before us. So we removed the beds and used our compartment as the community room for everyone. Unfortunately, the two came later at Ax-les-Thermes, so we had to bring back the beds in the end. I always knew it, but it’s indispensable to book a whole compartment when we travel in a group, because these compartments are actually quite small and it’s super difficult to deal with strangers there, but if there are only our people, we can use it more like our party room, because as the train itself is fairly noisy, it doesn’t matter whether we are a bit noisy. This being said, this night train was fairly quiet. I was surprised.

Luckily, the two went to the seat car, so we could still sit there until something like midnight. When they came back, we put the beds back and almost immediately we slept. By the way there was an announcement long after we removed the beds saying it’s forbidden to remove the beds. This didn’t affect us a lot, but the French couple in our cabin also mentioned it when they came back. It’s kind of rare that people complain about something they don’t particularly care about.

I would say I slept fairly well. It’s not like it was the best sleep ever, but it was definitely a lot better than just sitting the whole night.

Day V

When I woke up, the train was almost in Paris. We all had to hurry up a lot to get ready to go. I managed it fairly well, but some people needed more time after when the train arrived. It almost looked slightly weird that we were staying in front of the train that had long arrived.

Kartik, Cláudia and Mehrbod had a train leaving 2h earlier than ours, so they took a metro to go to Gare du Nord. Since we had a lot of time, we simply walked through Paris, to see a bit of Notre Dame and the atmosphere of the Olympic Games. It was a pity because most of these things were closed. By the way from my point of view, I don’t think it’s possible to swim in the Seine.

We had breakfast in a random place. We thought it was a good idea to do it, but the drink cost me 5€. Wow it’s really expensive.

The train from Gare du Nord to Düsseldorf went according to the plan. I didn’t take a holiday so I was working on the train all the time. For some reason I can work super well on the train. Maybe I should do it more often.

And so much was our trip to the Pyrenees. It felt to me like a storm, and I guess it was the same for everyone.

I started planning this trip over a year ago. It’s just one of the best places to go, and the combination of Eurostar and the night train. It was just totally unexpected that this plan falls flat so badly. I’m glad that no one took it too badly, and we kept a good mood all the time. I found it also perfect how we flexibly changed the plan and how things worked out accordingly.

The hiking tracks turned out to be also pretty good, especially despite the problem that we could do only a fraction of what I had planned initially. I’m also glad that Cláudia spontaneously took over the job and made a hiking trail, even though that one turned out to be extremely difficult. This being said, I would not have been able to offer a better one, so I can definitely not complain.

For the rest, I really enjoyed the social component of this event: There was a really nice atmosphere at the restaurants, the party in the market place, and the spontaneous breakfast and sharing of lunch during the hike etc. It was a beautiful mixture of people with everyone playing a certain role. It’s not like I have difficulties elsewhere or so, but I have definitely seen more difficult situations.

So in total, I think there’s not much that I would change in the future. I guess I will give it a try next year or so, because I really want to see the initial trail. Let’s see if I am going to make it.

5 1 vote
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
0 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments