Last year I have started a new long-term projekt: I want to traverse all of Europe on foot from South to North. The termini are the Southernmost point in mainland Europe, Tarifa in Spain and the Northernmost point, North Cape in Norway. The whole route will be almost 10,000 km long and therefore it made sense to me to hike it in two seasons. I have now completed the first half of this trip in fall and winter of 2013/14.
I was also pursuing another goal with this hike: As a full time hiker I am always looking for destinations for winter in the Northern hemisphere. So far I have spent my winters mostly preparing my next trips or doing something in the Southern hemisphere like Australia. Now I wanted to find out whether it is possible to do a long-distance hike in Europe in winter. I had done plenty of winter hiking before, but cold temperatures and snow make very long winter trips uncomfortable. I was therefore looking for a route that was hikeable in winter without major snow problems and a still tolerable temperature.
These two goals were easily combined in this hike although the concrete route planning took almost two months. Here is the route I have hiked:
I decided to start at the river Rhine in Germany. The main route requirement was relative low altitude in order to avoid snow problems. Looking at the geography of Southern Europe I was looking at three major “obstacles”: I had to cross the Massif Central in Southern France, then the Pyrenees and eventually the Sierra Nevada in Southern Spain. Luckily none of these geographical barriers turned out to be a real problem.
The whole trip took me 5 months. It is impossible to write a detailed trip report for such a long trip. So if you are interested in more details have a look at my blog:
http://christine-on-big-trip.blogspot.de/search/label/Southern%20Europe
I would still like to show some photos to whet your appetite for hiking in Europe:
For me this has been one of the most enjoyable hikes in my entire 30,000 km long hiking career. Four factors stand out for me:
This has been a very culinary hike! In Europe you are mostly hiking through cultivated countryside and doing this in fall you will be rewarded with a lot of free wayside food. I was feasting on grapes in the vineyards of France, followed by an abundance of walnuts and figs in Southern France. When I arrived in the lowlands of Valencia it was orange harvest time and the harvesters were stuffing my backpack with oranges, mandarines and even persimmon. Unfortunately I could not eat the many olives along the way in Southern Spain.
Trail towns were absolutely fabulous and I have never done so much sightseeing on any other trip. I saw cathedrals and little wayside chapels, impressive towns with medieaval town walls and abandonded farmsteads, industrial monuments and plenty of little interesting museums. Even if you are not interested in sightseeing the little towns are great photo opportunities.
The landscape was incredibly varied. I followed and crossed most of the important European rivers like the Rhine, the Moselle, the Loire, the Ebro and the Guadalquivir. I saw impressive river gorges like the gorges du Tarn in France. I crossed the Pyrenees. But I was most impressed with the mesas and sierras of Southern Spain that very often reminded me of Southwest USA.
And I proved that you can comfortably hike through Europe even in winter. I started end of August and finished end of January. Although I occasionally encountered snow and subfreezing temperatures I did not feel colder or more uncomfortable than on any other summer hike. Southern Spain is very dry: Even when it is cold at night you are usually rewarded with blue sky and sun the next morning.
Please let me know if you have questions regarding long-distance hiking in Europe.
