Back to the Alps

I'm now in Hall, Austria and about to start a 23 day trip which will hopefully provide me with everything I need to finish my second walking guide and the material needed for a third.  Sadly I'm on my own. After last year's heroic efforts negotiating fixed steel cables on the Munich Venice trip, Christine, a couple of weeks ago, hit the bedroom floor with a bump and broke not one but two bones in her foot.  We were days away from the start of a 9 week schedule which included trips to the Alps and the Himalayas, plans that have now been scrambled. 

Leaving Christine hobbling about at home, the revised plan involves 4 days crossing the Tuxer Alps, completing a couple of stages I missed last year because of bad weather. I'll then travel on to the Civetta Alps.  I'll spend 3 days there trying a non-via ferrata route down to Belluno.  Without this it's impossible to walk from Munich to Venice without a helmet and a harness.

Having filled the in the gaps for the Munich Venice guide (the manuscript has to be with Cicerone before Christmas) then it's off to Sillian for a walk along the Carnic Ridge.  This is the second time I've done this walk and, although not on the epic scale of Munich to Venice, the Karnisher Höhenweg is very popular amongst German and Austrian hikers but almost unknown in the Anglo Saxon world. It's a hike than can be completed comfortably in 8 days but I'll be walking some of variants making for a longer trip.

Despite mostly walking alone from Tarifa to Budapest I much prefer to walk with Christine.  A shared adventure is a shared memory and piecing together the details of summer trips cheers up the dark wet winter days in Brighton.  Christine is useless at navigation but brilliant at spelling and punctuation and the quality of my blogging output goes down when she's not there. 

The metatarsal mangling has produced just one upside. We should have been in Hall 10 days ago but it's been raining here almost continually for two weeks.  The weather forecast for the next four days looks excellent and with any luck I'll get the photographs I need for the book.  It's just a shame that none of them will feature Christine.

5.5 kg

Cycling from Roscoff to Caen via Nantes

I enjoyed last year's cycling trip to France so much that I decided to do it again this time dragging Christine along as well.  It was a great success and if anything things have got even better there for cyclists since last year.

Going with Christine gave me a good excuse to repeat some of last year's route.  Once again, I took the overnight ferry from Plymouth to Roscoff and cycled along the Velodessey route across Brittany to Nantes.  Following the Brest Nantes canal, the route is a brilliant 4 day introduction to easy French off-road cycling.  At Nantes we headed east (the Velodessey continues down the coast to Hendaye on the border with Spain) and along the Loire route to Ancenis turning north next day at Angers on day 6.  Following a new route, La Vélo Francette we arrived in Caen after another 3 day's to catch a ferry to Portsmouth and home.  Everything worked, and although we had a couple of damp days in Brittany, we enjoyed good weather for the rest of the time.

No weight watching

If you have never cycled along the comparatively new French cycle network you are missing a treat - it's amazing and is rapidly becoming a world cycling wonder.

Veloroutes & greenways

The network has two elements, veloroutes and greenways.  The veloroutes are designed for long distance multiday trips and are generally off-road, with a surface usually consisting of fine gravel.  The greenways (velo vertes) are a much higher standard,  super smooth and attract a wide range of users from cyclists on road bikes to in-line skaters. These much higher standard routes can still be as long as 50km and we enjoyed such a one on the last day back to Caen.

Great scenery on the Loire

Velo routes often follow disused railway lines and canals.  As well as being fairly  flat and traffic free they are also beautiful - usually tree lined,and often featuring interesting examples of France's industrial  heritage.

The network combines high quality with huge scale.  The French plan, part of a sustainable transport strategy agreed back in 2004, will deliver a 20,000 km network by 2020 - larger than the French rail network.  From an English perspective, admiration is tinged with envy.  Our elite cyclists may win gold medals at the Olympics and the Tour de France but the French have delivered for cyclists  on a much broader scale.

The French themselves are perhaps only just beginning to wake up to the extent of their achievement. When we were there newspapers, as well reporting on record tourist receipts, were also full of stories about visiting cyclists.  Apparently every kilometre of cycle route generates an annual revenue of 80,000 euros with 600,000 a year using the most Loire route alone.

A mill on the Mayenee and our accommodation in Grez-Neuville

Although we saw every sort of cyclist (lots of family groups) the routes were not crowded.  We stayed in small hotels and booked ahead using Booking.com.  This was a mistake and there is enough accommodation, even in late July, to take a more flexible approach.  Each route has its own dedicated website describing what to expect and providing details of every type of accomodation, including camping, and using this information it is easy to plan each day as it comes.

On the 9 days we averaged about 95kms a day and, to be honest, our days were a bit too long.  The veloroutes are good, but 6 hours or so in the saddle does take its toll, and it wasn't just Christine was feeling sore by the end of each afternoon.  Occasionally it's possible to go on-road and take a shortcut along French country roads that, compared to the SE of England, are quiet, but beware these roads are occasionally used by some huge and intimidating lorries.  If you're interested in the schedule, we took then please have a look at my page on Viewranger. Search using the code Elpont47, Elpont48 and Elpont49.


 If you want to see even more photos follow this link

Haywards Heath to Lewes

If you want to go out for a whole day, journey through varied and interesting countryside, choose from an excellent selection of lunch stops, why not walk from Hayward's Heath to Lewes.  When I did it with a couple of mates, it was early June and the Sussex countryside, intensely green, was really showing off.

Hiking through Castellón - Day 9 to Morella

The last day of the hike through Castellón is both a suitable climax to the whole trip and somehow, in a single day, sums up what makes walking in Spain special.  The walk between what are arguably the most attractive hilltop towns on the whole route, Ares del Maestre and Morella, journey’s across a wide and open landscape, still farmed in places, and travels along paths that have obviously been used for centuries.  It’s an old fashioned countryside in every sense of the word and the walk across it to Morella is the perfect way to end the journey through Castellón.

The Day 9 walk is 23km long and can completed in about 7 hours.  There is nowhere on the route for lunch so ask the hotel at Ares del Maestre to prepare a sandwich.  There are of course plenty of places to stay at Morella, a good choice of restaurants for an end of trip celebration. From Morella there is an early morning bus back down to the town of Castellón on the coast and the train network.

Hiking through Castellón - Day 8 to Ares del Maestre

It is possible to walk all the way to Morella in a day, but it is a very big day (I’ve done it twice).  The total walk is 34km and takes around 10 hours. If you like a challenge, it’s an epic way to finish the walk through Castellón but it does mean rushing through Ares del Maestre.  Ares del Maestre is lovely and, if you have any appreciation of hilltop towns, is a place to enjoy.  It also features a nice hotel.

Sensible people will make a leisurely start, have a late breakfast, have a look around Benasal, then set off to Ares del Maestre which is just 11km and between 3 and 4 hours away.  Although I haven’t stayed in it, the menu in the little town’s hotel looks very nice and of course you don’t have to start it until about three o’clock.  If you need more exercise, there are some excellent circular walks from Ares del Maestre with the attached just one example.

Benasal

Hiking through Castellón - Day 7 to Benasal

After a day spent in Vistabella del Maestrazgo, with a little detour up the Penyagolosa, it’s back to business as usual and another march across the wild and almost empty uplands of Castellón.

Hiking through Castellón - Day 6 to Penyagolosa

It’s possible to take ‘place-to-place’ walking too literally and go crashing on to the next town missing out on local treats.  At Vistabella del Maestrazgo, with Penyagolosa on the ‘doorstep’, this would be madness, you just have to take ‘a day off’ and walk up what is Valencia’s most iconic mountain.

The full circular

Last time I walked the GR7 (on my E4 - Tarifa/Budapest trip) the weather was poor and I hardly saw the mountain. I  was down on the coast and long past it when it revealed itself for the first time and but its importance to the locals was immediately apparent.  In good weather you can see it for miles, it stands out like a sore thumb.  The mountain (Peñagolosa in Spanish - Penyagolosa in Valencian - golosa derived from collossal) at 1813m is not the highest in Valencia (pipped at the post by Cerro Calderón - 1838m) but it’s by far the most prominent.