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About a year ago, our British hiking buddies Colin and Jane asked us if we were interested in doing the Annapurna Base Camp trek in Nepal. We thought that was a swell idea and agreed that a Spring 2024 date was achievable. What followed was a year of preparation, panic, exercise, doubt, confidence and ultimately a trip to Nepal.

The Annapurna Base Camp (or ABC) trek is notoriously hilly, involving nine days of hiking averaging 12-14 kilometers per day, or about 7 hours hiking per day. There’s hardly a level spot on the whole hike, you’re either going up or down. Almost all of the trek is above 2000 meters elevation, two days are above 3000 meters and ABC itself is 4310. What I’m saying is it’s a strenuous hike, especially for people in their mid-sixties.

Since about November, we’d been hiking nearly every weekend near Valencia, in the hopes of getting into shape for the trek. Cindy had been hitting the gym, working the treadmill and leg strengthening. I was walking about an hour and a half every day, taking every opportunity to put some elevation down in flat Valencia. We both walked the stairs to our 17th floor apartment at least once a day, by the end I was taking the stairs twice. We thought we were ready.

Cindy started making travel arrangements which proved troublesome. Turkish Airlines, who we were told are a wonderful airline, screwed up the booking and it took literally months and a physical trip to the airport for her to get it straightened out. Air travel turned out to be one of the recurring difficulties during the trip.

Still, we felt ready at the end of March so off we went to our first stop in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal and by far the largest city. We didn’t know when we arrived that the city had nearly tripled in size just since 2000, to 1.6 million. It quickly became apparent that the population has overwhelmed the infrastructure. Nepal suffered a 20-year civil war (mid-’90s to mid 2010s) before establishing a republic and their economy, while it is growing, is heavily dependent on tourism and remittances from expats in India, the Middle East and East Asia. The country also depends heavily on foreign aid to bring most of its citizens out of the deepest poverty (Wikipedia).

What that means in practical terms is that there are very few public services like transit, road infrastructure, water treatment, police etc. So you can’t count on the water (ask me how I know), the streets have no sidewalks, so you’re walking in traffic whenever you walk in the city, almost nobody goes by bus or metro (ha!) so there are a million motorbikes and cars on the move. This of course fouls the air, raises a lot of dust and makes walking anywhere in Kathmandu a white-knuckle experience.

So, this is how we found ourselves in Kathmandu for a couple of days ahead of our trek. We walked around the center of the city, visited the Monkey Temple, shopped for a couple of last-minute items and mostly tried to take in the city without dying in the street. Thanks to a miscommunication between ourselves, we also made daily forays to the ATMs to collect enough cash to cover tips for our guide and porters. We met with Prakesh, owner of Prime Himalayas expeditions, who we hired to guide us on our trek. I can say that definitely Prime Himalayas is a quality outfitter and we’d recommend them to anyone.

We took part of a day to visit the nearby town of Bhaktapur, known for its well preserved old town that dates from the Middle Ages and its many temples, both Hindu and Buddhist, located in the city’s four main squares. Bhaktapur is also known for its woodcarving and sculptures. Bhaktapur was heavily damaged by the earthquake that shook Nepal in 2015 and is still recovering.

Back in Kathmandu, we visited the Garden of Dreams, a lovely little oasis in the midst of the madness of the city.

From Kathmandu we flew to Pokhara, where we’d meet our guide and porters for the trek. Our flight out of Kathmandu was delayed by several hours (a theme we’d return to over our trip). By the time they loaded us onto the bus, our mid-afternoon flight was getting ready to take off in the usual evening thunderstorm, so after they took us out to the airplane they turned right around and took us back to the gate. This caused a near riot of the other passengers who we were told were accusing the airline of canceling flights until they got full airplanes. Police were called, everyone got it out of their system without anyone getting hurt and an hour or so later we made the half hour or so flight to Pokhara, where we met up with our friends Colin and Jane who had been in town a few days.

We spent a day or so exploring Pokhara, visiting with Jane and Colin and sorting our gear into piles to take or leave, and what of the things we were bringing we wanted to carry in our day packs vs. the duffels our porters were to carry.

Day 1: Pokhara – Nayapul – Ulleri

The trek began with a van ride from Pokhara to the town of Nayapul right at the base of the foothills over roads that varied from pavement to very rough gravel. It was a couple of uncomfortable hours breathing the diesel exhaust of the trucks and buses and the unburnt gas from the two-stroke scooters. I wasn’t feeling great thanks to (what we later decided was) drinking bad water and Jane was still recovering from a digestive problem she’d gotten about a week before. We set of around noon for our destination for the day of Ulleri.

It quickly became evident that Jane wasn’t doing well. Her illness came roaring back with fever and gastrointestinal problems. We finally sent her back to Pokhara by jeep. She insisted that Colin continue; she returned to the hotel we had stayed at and spent 5 days recovering and consuming antibiotics. She would later join us on the last couple of days of the trek but she sadly missed the base camp itself.

We arrived around 3:30 PM at Ulleri for an initial climb of 900 meters or so.

Day 2: Ulleri – Ghorepani

This day we got into the rhododendron forests for the first time. We also climbed one stretch of 2600 steps according to Arjun who counted them back when he was a porter. There was a lot of up and down through the foothills this day.

We stayed overnight in Ghorepani, another 900 meters net elevation gain. We made an early night of it, as we had to get up well before dawn to get to Poon Hill for sunrise.

Day 3: Ghorepani – Poon Hill – Tadapani

4:30 AM came all too soon and we grabbed our day packs and headlamps to climb the 300 meters to Poon Hill before the sun rose. Poon Hill is up hundreds of stairs from Ghorepani. It’s a viewpoint where you can watch the sun rise and light up the Annapurna range. From there you can see Annapurna I, II, III and South (all individual peaks), plus Machapuchare (“Fish Tail”) and a handful of other peaks. It’s a beautiful spot.

This was the day the stomach bug I got in Pokhara really took hold. The climb was rough for me. On top of this, the headlamp I had used just a couple days before refused to work so I was depending on others to light my way up the steps. Fun!

Panoramic view from Poon Hill

After Poon Hill, we returned to Ghorepani for breakfast and then struck out for our next stop, Tadapani.

Ghorepani to Tadapani, a net loss of 200 meters, with a whole lot of elevation in between.

Day 4: Tadapani – Chhumrong

This day offered no particular goals or attractions, rather it was a grind-it-out day of ups and downs through the rhodie forests, past farms and streams to get to the valley up which we’d walk to get to ABC.

Chhumrong is net 300 meters lower than Tadapani. Again, there were plenty of ridges to climb and descend between start and finish.

Day 5: Chhumrong – Himalaya

Here we turned and started up the valley that leads to the base camp. The weather changed its pattern here too, clouding up and dumping rain (later, snow) in the afternoons when the warm moist air from the Kathmandu Valley rose up over the Himalayas and dumped its load.

Himalaya is some 600 meters above Chhumrong. Fires aren’t allowed either here or at ABC so soggy things stay wet. It got chilly overnight too; we put on most of our layers here and kept them on through the night.

Day 6: Himalaya – ABC

The day of the big push to the Base Camp dawned clear and cold. After the usual breakfast, maybe eggs and fries or granola with hot (powdered) milk or eggs with Gurung bread or one or two other options along with tea, we set off to ABC.

Avalanche on the trail

There was nothing to see through the snow when we arrived, other than more snow, so we ate and hung out a while in the dining room and then crawled into our sleeping bags. Tomorrow would be another early day and the big reveal. Net elevation gain was about 1300 meters. We were tired.

Day 6: ABC – Bamboo

We got up just at sunrise to get out to the viewpoint by the base camp to get our payoff. We walked through a foot of new snow to the overlook over Annapurna glacier and the Annapurna range. It was a spectacular bluebird morning and the view was amazing.

The panoramic view.

Then it was time for breakfast and the return trip to lower elevations.

At the end of this leg, Cindy’s knee began to ache. Net elevation loss: 1800 meters.

Day 7: Bamboo – Jhinu Danda

This day we retraced our steps through Chhumrong and then branched off to the direct path back to Nayapul. It was a lot of up-and-down over the ridges which triggered something in Cindy’s knee. Getting up and down the stair steps was a slow and painful experience for her.

We did, however, get to meet back up with Jane. After recovering back in Pokhara and trying some test walks, she felt well enough to meet us at our lunch stop and walk with us on the rest of our return trip.

We stayed at an actual hotel that night although the power went out thanks to thunderstorms. Still, the local rum tasted awfully good in the dining hall. Net elevation loss: 800 meters.

Day 8: Jinhu Danda – Nayapul – Pokhara

Cindy’s knee was unusable after the previous day, it couldn’t hold her weight and was extremely painful. We took the sensible option of a short walk to the road where a jeep could pick us up and take us back to our starting point at Nayapul and from there back to Pokhara.

The ride down followed the road we would have walked and to be honest I didn’t mind missing the walk. It really wasn’t attractive and we would have been walking with the traffic passing on another hot, hot day. Just as well. Total elevation loss: who cares? we were riding.

Epilog

The following day we left Jane and Colin to catch our flight to India. They were going to stay on at a nice resort hotel in Pokhara for a few days. They had a little twist, though, when a lightning strike caused a bush fire that came within meters of their hotel before bucketfuls of rain put it out. They went on to spend a few days in Kathmandu and then returned to England.

Meanwhile, we landed in Kathmandu after a much delayed flight and when we checked in for our flight to Delhi we discovered to our horror that we needed visas for India which we hadn’t even considered ahead of time. After sitting on the concrete floor trying to figure out our options, tired and sick and embarrassed, we called it and booked flights back to Valencia through Qatar. The flight of course was delayed, enough so that we didn’t have time to use the fancy lounge we’d booked in Qatar before having to get onto the next flight to Madrid — which was also delayed. Upon arrival in Madrid we discovered that they had lost our luggage. Submitting the paperwork for that put us behind for getting to the train station to go to Valencia but fortunately (!) the train was delayed too. We straggled into our apartment mid-morning and pretty much collapsed. Cindy’s bag came a week later, mine a further week behind that.

So. Was it worth it? I’d say a qualified “yes”. Travel to a place like Nepal is never going to be easy and the trek itself was incredibly strenuous. I wish we’d done it twenty years ago. It was one of those trips where just about everything that could go wrong did and there was a fair amount of not-fun involved. Still, the countryside was beautiful, the people very kind and we accomplished a thing that not many people do. So yeah, worth it.

We have family in the country. Our niece and nephew Katy and Joe and their daughter Elsa are teaching in Barcelona for a year. We hadn’t seen them and they had some time off for All Saints Day so we grabbed the train to BCN, rented a car and took them up to the foothils of the Pyrenees to find some fall color.

We drove about two hours north to the tiny town of Alp near the Andorran border where we found an AirBnb big enough for the five of us. Catching up with the A_ family was great. Katy is a little disappointed that she can’t further develop her rather good Spanish but is being a good sport about learning Catalan. Joe seems to be managing and is challenging his new batch of history and civics students. Elsa has been adopted into a group that has a lot of shared interests and appears to be thriving. They’ve spent the fall exploring around Barcelona and making the most of their available time.

Our first day’s hike was in Parc Natural del Cadí-Moixeró, where we found a little walk next to a river, over a Roman bridge and through the woods. Further upriver was a dam that regulated the river flow. We got close enough to see it but weren’t able to see the lake from where we were.

We did another little walk up a little creek not too far from Alp. Turned out to be a lovely trail with a waterfall for the payoff.

At this point, we had to drop the kids off at the nearest train station to return to work, cough and we went on to Santa Pau, a lovely midieval village near Girona. We stayed in a cottage from the 1600s in the hills above town. Santa Pau’s region is known for its ancient volcanoes. You can still see the cinder cones although the last eruption was 11,000 years ago. The area still has earthquakes, the latest occurring in the early 1900s and being felt in Barcelona 60 miles away.

We took a walk up to a high point out of town through a lovely forest, past ruined buildings. It was chilly and windy so we hurried past exposed spots.

We took a little side trip to Besalú, county seat of the comarca of Besalú. Wilfred the Hairy, credited with the unification of Catalonia, was Count of Besalú. [Wikipedia] It’s know particularly for its picturesque bridge across the river Fluvia into the old town.

We spent another day in Girona, enjoying the old town and the city wall before returning the rental and hopping the train back home. It was a pleasant change and swing into fall.

August in Valencia is a great time to be somewhere else. High heat and humidity drive even the locals out of town. Most businesses shut down for the month and the smart expat will take the hint and find somewhere cooler to be.

Cindy found a company that offers supported town-to-town hikes in the Czech Republic and later Dan met us in Milan for a few days and then the three of us ran off to the Dolomites in northeastern Italy for a week of hiking. We were gone for a total of three weeks, which was not quite enough to escape all of the heat but did allow us to skip out on the worst of the summer. Given that it was a three week trip, this will mostly be a photo essay with just enough words to contextualize the whole thing. So, enjoy the journey along with us.

Right at the end of July we flew to Prague to spend a few days exploring. The old part of town is lovely and given that it has avoided most of the fighting in the last century it’s still in pretty good shape. In the old part of town there are interesting sights around most every corner.

The Franz Kafka statue. Each layer rotates on its own and the entire evolution of the sculpture is something to behold.

The Powder Gate, one of the original gates in the 15th Century city wall.

Old Town city square and surrounding buildings.

The towers of the Týn Church

The astronomical clock, one of the main attractions of the old town square. No, I have no idea how to read it; I’m like an 18 year old with an analog watch.

The Charles Bridge, begun at the end of the 14th Century and finished in the beginning of the 16th.

We did a dinner cruise on the Vltava River that runs through the center of town. Sunset was pretty.

Gardens of the Prague Castle

Gardens again, with our resident gardener.

The castle from across the river.

From Prague, we caught a bus northeast to the Bohemian Paradise, a region of scenic and rugged sandstone “stone cities” about 60 KM away.

The Bohemian Paradise region, not far from Prague

Our first day hiking was a circular route beginning and ending in Turnov and our introduction to the stone cities. These are sandstone bluffs that the surrounding land has eroded away from, leaving these amazing towers behind.

The woods we walked through were beautiful and peaceful. This first day we hardly saw anyone else.

The people of course took advantage of these natural towers and built fortifications on them to defend their land.

From the top of the tower you could see a very long way indeed.

On our second day out we walked from Turnov to Hruba Skala where the castle of the same name sits on top of the bluff overlooking the town. This was to be our residence for a couple of days.

A farmhouse built in the traditional log-built style, one of the last remaining.

One kind of expects a gnome or an elf or something to come through the woods.

We found many of these carvings in the sandstone near the log house. Some pretty good artists did this work.

A sandstone depiction of the log house, near the log house. Meta.

Nearer Hruba Skala we came out at this viewpoint overlooking the main group of rock towers.

Climbers were working several of the towers. This is the home of some of the first sandstone climbing, which requires quite different technique and tools from hard rock climbing thanks to the crumbly soft stone.

Bohemian selfie

The towers from much closer, and below.

Hruba Skala Castle among the cliffs. Note Trosky Castle in the far distance, it’ll come up again.

When someone mentions being in “deep clover,” think of this.

We took a day off to take care of a little business in town, then for the next leg we walked 18 KM from Hruba Skala to Prachov, via Trosky castle.

Trails were well marked but there were lots of them.

Along the way, more rock towns.

Trosky in the distance.

…and a bit closer

Be ready, you never know what you’ll find in Bohemia.

This is why they went to the trouble of building this castle; it dominates the entire landscape.

A depiction of the castle in its heyday.

After leaving the castle we passed through these lovely open woods.

Deeply rutted footpath. How long do you think people have walked here?

Overnight at Prachov, in a park hotel in the woods, we were treated to a huge thunder and lightning storm which took out the power at the hotel. They were still able to pull together breakfast and made sandwiches for our lunch even without power and bless ’em for that. The last leg of our walking holiday was from Prachov to the larger town of Jicin via the huge rock town of Prachovske Skaly.

Some of the trails got a little narrow.

The scale of these rocks is mind bending.

These stacks are where the local rock climbing club got its start back at the beginning of the previous century.

Some of these towers are 60 meters tall and many of them are individually named.

Jicin from the nearest high point. By the time we got here this seemed like a pretty big town.

Jicin’s center is very pretty.

We spent a couple days in Jicin, then caught the bus back to Prague where we had another couple of days to recover and sightsee before flying out to Milan.

We found this park outside the main part of the city with welcome shade in the hot sun.

We met Dan in Milan and shared a nice roomy AirBnb for a few days of city-style adventuring.

The cathedral is spectacular.

The original Beach Body.

Roof spires: we’ve got a thousand of ’em.

Details details.

Looking out at the new from the old.

The actual Last Supper in situ at the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. The painting is made more remarkable by the way it seems to extend the dining hall past the wall upon which it’s painted. Hardly any of the paint is original; it’s been restored many times over the centuries.

Walking back from dinner one evening through Sforza Castle. 2/3 of my favorite people.

We took a tour of La Scala opera house. It’s quite a large complex and includes a museum.

Day trip to Lake Como. This is the town of Bellagio. We intended to stop in but the ferry schedule was not with us.

Varenna, where we started and ended our trip.

Travel buddies

Above Menaggio. The hike up to this point turned out to be much steeper and more difficult than I imagined when I looked at it on Google Maps. Worth it? Sure but we weren’t really equipped for it. Insult was added to injury when a family came in on the uphill side from the car park just a short distance away.

One of the villas arrayed along the waterfront.

A picturesque sunset capped our day at the lake.

We rented a car and drove northeast to the town of Corvara in Badia in the Italian Dolomites for a week of hiking. We didn’t realize it at the time but we chose an Italian bank holiday weekend for our trip so the entire region was chuck-a-block with people.

What should have been about a 4-hour drive was more like six thanks to holiday traffic.

Our first day of hiking was just around the valley near town where we could acclimate to the altitude of about 1500 meters and see the lovely greenery nearby.

Just about every time you popped out and could see a bit, you were blessed with a gorgeous vista.

We did climb a bit out of the valley to one of the passes that give entry to Covara. It was a chore but the payoff was in the views all around.

Looking back at the pass from a bit further along.

Overlooking the town from above.

The next day we did a circular route that began and ended in the valley you can see center right. There was a lot of elevation in this hike as you’ll see.

This trail junction is where we got an idea of the high point of the hike, that little gap in the rocks waaay up there. By this time Dan had left us well behind as we weren’t keeping up on the climb.

Further along the trail and the gap only looks a little closer.

Looking back at the hanging valley from where we came. While it was cloudy all day it wasn’t too cold.

Top of the gap, finally. The trip down was a long series of switchbacks through the scree.

The payoff was this little lake where we ate a late lunch.

Looking back at the gap and the path down which we came.

Further on, we can again see the valley where we parked. It was still a couple miles away down steep switchbacks but at least we could see the end.

The next day dawned bright and clear in the valley. Dan had arranged to hike on his own, combining two separate hikes into one 17-miler that we all hoped would satisfy his need for a challenge. Turns out it did: even he admitted to being tired at the end of the day.

Cindy and I took a shorter route, past Averau peak, ahead on the left.

Looking back down the trail. Everywhere you looked was a gorgeous mountain view.

First high point, at the top of a chairlift. There are ski areas throughout the region, all linked, and many of the hiking routes we took are ski runs in winter.

Climbing to the highest point of the hike at Nuvolau. This is a steady climb to a peak the other side of which is a vertical drop to the valley.

Looking back toward Averau.

First peek at Cinque Torri. This is a mecca for climbers and day hikers.

A closer look at the Cinque Torri rocks.

The path that circumnavigates the Torri includes passages between the rocks, some of which became quite narrow.

Our goal for the following day, Sassongher mountain, from town. We started walking from our hotel in the middle distance to the top.

More climbing, about 1200 meters in 6 KM.

There was a lot of exposed trail and a fall could have been very bad.

The valley from the top of Sassongher, about a mile straight down.

The peak.

Part of the climb and the descent involved something closer to mountaineering than I’m usually comfortable with but we all made it with no incidents.

The walk back down took us across some trails that felt pretty exposed, where a misstep could have some pretty significant consequences.

On our last hiking day we took it easier, with a walk along the valley to a gondola where we rode to the top. Again the views were spectacular.

Pretty soon after we got up on top, the weather started to close in.

Those look like rain clouds.

Definitely rain. Is there a shelter nearby? We did get rained on but shared porch space at a refugio with dozens of our best friends. You can see them on the trail above.

The storm ended quickly and we were able to resume our walk.

Once again, the views were spectacular.

Once we found our way back down to the valley, Cindy waited for the bus back to the hotel. Dan and I walked back down the valley and were treated to one more gorgeous view.

The following day was getaway day and a seven-hour stop-and-go slog back to Milan. Dan actually had to re-book his train to Zurich because we weren’t going to get back in time. Cindy and I had a little more time to get to the airport so we knew we were OK.

Turns out we had more cushion than we realized.

Good trip, plenty of outdoor air and very little heat and humidity AND we got to spend time with Dan. Win!

Las Fallas is a uniquely Valencian event that usally takes place in March every year, in which elaborate sculptures are constructed and painted over the course of the year, assembled…and then burned. It’s the biggest event in Valencia every year and this year it was even bigger because it had been postponed for two years thanks to Covid. Turnout for this year’s event was enormous and enthusiastic and the fallas (a word that has several meanings, in this case the groups that construct the sculptures (or fallas) in the year between Fallas (the event)) had budget saved up plus extra funding from the city to make the sculptures bigger and more elaborate than ever.

More background on Las Fallas here: https://www.donquijote.org/spanish-culture/holidays/fallas/ . It’s really pretty interesting and goes back centuries.

The celebration begins at the end of February and extends to March 19, the Feast of St. John, patron saint of carpenters. One of the Fallas committees had an installation in the plaza right in front of us so we got a front row seat to the whole event this year. Once the sculptures had been assembled, the last 10 days or so were nonstop parties throughout the city, with drinks and food being sold at all times of day and night and people walking through the city to look at the many sculptures. Oh and fireworks. Lots and lots of fireworks.

Let’s take a look, shall we?

In late February crews begin to arrive in plazas big and small around the city and put up poles from which they hang large stage lighting arrays, and hanging lights along the streeets. About a week ahead of the event, trucks begin to show up with sculpture pieces that they then offload and the assembly process begins.

Several days of hard work (and hard drinking from what I can tell) later, the fallas are ready to be judged. This is when the party really begins. Churro and alcohol stands have gone up everywhere, the many people who have been coming by to check out the progress of the sculptures suddenly doubles, and at all hours of day and night there are people passing, walking the city to see the many fallas.

Crews worked overnight to clean up and by morning there was hardly a trace of the fallas. Within a few days all of the tents and stands were gone and that was Las Fallas 2022.

I’ve been remiss. We have not actually gone into stasis since our last post but I got busy and/or lazy so now I have some catching up to do. Right at the end of February we ran off to Austria to meet our new British friends and get some spa time in along with snow activities for the first time since we moved. It was a trip that we had to delay by a few weeks due to the winter Covid surge in Austria, which meant that the snow was a bit past its prime but we didn’t care; it was good to get up into the mountains again.

We stayed a couple days in Vienna first since I had never visited and it’s been forty years since Cindy was there last. Turns out Austria is cold in the winter, who knew? The cold wind blowing in from Germany limited us to quick dashes between museums and restaurants to get out of the chill air. Austria was once a powerful empire, many people don’t know that but they’re being recognized more and more*, and the Viennese architecture reflects their former glory.

The parliament was closed for renovations but even behind the fence you could see it was an imposing sight. Will have to go back for that. The city had an enormous skating rink, really pathways through the trees in the park next door, that folks were enjoying. They make everything big and monumental in Vienna.

For example, these buildings, housing art and natural history museums. You could just feel the scale, the weight of these buildings.

The Russians’ war on Ukraine had just begun; the Austrians showed support. It all felt much closer from there.

From Vienna we caught the train to the city of Villach in the south of the country.

Map of the region we visited. It turns out that Villach is only a couple hours’ drive from Venice; it would have been much quicker to fly there and catch a train to Villach than to go into Vienna. Also, because I haven’t really looked at a map of the region, I had no idea that Slovenia and the rest of eastern Europe were so close. Ignorance is bliss until you realize just how dumb you’ve been.

There we stayed at a lovely spa resort, the See Rose Hotel and met up with our new friends Colin and Jane, whom we met on our hiking trip to Andalucia in the fall. There we got some skiing in, first time since we left the States, along with some hiking and snowshoeing.

View from the Villach resort. One has to adjust to sharing a sauna with, well, everyone. According to one of the employees at the hotel, we were some of the first English speaking guests ever there. Anyway, lovely setting.

Cindy in her happy place

People were paragliding from the ski area, landing in town in the valley below.

We did a group snowshoe hike above the lake as well. Our guides (one of whom is in the green hat pointing out features) were professional and very nice. This was Colin and Jane’s first time on snowshoes and they took to it like ducks to water.

Our intrepid companions

All of us, soaking up the sun

The four of us did a hike from the midpoint of the gondola that gets you up the mountainside from the Ossiacher See (the lake) to the top of the ski resort. It was a good four hour walk through the countryside among the ski cabins owned by the locals, with a bit of a traverse along the ski runs to the very top, then down by a different route to the gondola. It was a good four hour or so hike in the fresh air. The mountains in the distance separate Austria from Slovenia.

We took a day and rented a car to drive into Slovenia to explore. We visited Lake Bled, which we have since been told is not the place to go “because it’s where they go for destination weddings all the time.” No weddings in sight on this day. This is Bled Castle as seen from the town

The iconic church on the island as seen from the castle

And the church from lake level

The mountains as seen from the road were spectacular too. It was a lovely drive.

We did a second snowshoeing trip into the hills a bit further from town. Views and scenery were spectacular, company was good and there was a cute little restaurant with lovely dishes just at the point we got hungry.

Artsy!

We caught the train back to Vienna for a couple more days of being cold and visiting museums, then flew home. And that was our winter trip to play in the snow.

*Channeling a Certain Someone

The end of October and the first week of November saw our first visitors from the States and the last really good weather of the fall, and it all came together in Andalusia (Andalucia en Español) and Toledo.

Canillas

Cindy’s ski bus pals Jo-Anne and Joan had joined a bicycle tour from Seville to Málaga and Cindy thought it would be fun to join them to celebrate their ride, have a nice dinner, and see old friends. Of course, there’s no point in going all that way and then not taking advantage of the beautiful parks in the area so she found us a six day Collete hiking tour based in Canillas de Albaida, which backs up to the Parque Natural de Sierras de Tejeda, Almijara y Alhama, all just northwest of Nerja on the Andalusian coast.

Our Seattle buddies Cheri and Robbie flew in to join us in Málaga and come hiking too. It was quite exciting to anticipate our first guests in eighteen months. We spent about a day and a half exploring the core of Málaga, which has a very nice central old part of town that they’ve turned into a vibrant tourist area, including a 16th Century cathedral and the Alcazaba and Castle of Gibralfaro, fortifications overlooking the harbor that date back to the Phonecians in the 7th C BCE. We didn’t have long to hang out before we had to scuttle out to the airport to meet our hosts and take the 40 minute van ride to Villa la Posada en Canillas de Abaida, our home for the week.

Mick, our lead hiking guide, is a gruff Englishman who has lived in the region for over 25 years with his large family. Gustavo is owner of Villa la Posada and quite a character, Spanish from head to toe. Gustavo liked a joke and loved to flirt, but he was a busy man and not ideally suited to the cat-herding involved in hosting and hauling around large groups of tourists. Mick had a plan and a schedule and not a lot of tolerance for anything that threw that off. Both ultimately turned out to be good hosts, but like all interesting characters, they had their strengths and flaws. We learned much about them and each other over the course of the week.

We made up a group of thirteen hikers overall, all of the others from different parts of the UK. They came from Glasgow and Eaton and Cambridge and… well you get the idea. We ranged in age from somewhere in our mid-50s to around 70. We were very lucky that everyone in the group was a lovely person, not a bad one in the bunch, and they all hiked to their abilities with nary a complaint. Each day we had the option of a more strenuous hike or a somewhat easier one, although as you’ll see from the pictures, all of the hikes involved a fair amount of elevation change and none of them was a stroll.

The days fell into a pattern; roll out of bed about 7:30 or 8:00, get ready and have communal breakfast in the courtyard and be ready to go by 9:30. Hike for the day, either direct from the town or maybe taking the van to a trailhead in the mountains, returning somewhere between 3:30 and 5:00. Rest, shower, etc and at 6:30 is “office hours” where we’re briefed on the the next day’s hike and we choose whether and what we will take for lunch and what we want for dinner all while sipping on a favorite beverage, then adjourn back to the courtyard for the evening meal, and finally off to one’s room to read, get ready for the next day, and sleep.

At 600 meters, it was cold when the sun went down. The alfresco breakfasts and dinners were often frosty affairs, with all of us grabbing all of our layers in order to keep warm. During the day, the sun provided plenty of warmth so layers came off quickly and we mostly hiked in shorts and t-shirts.

Chef Fran provided our meals. Breakfast was simple and hearty, offering bread, a choice of butter and jam or tomatoes and olive oil, meats and cheeses, cereal, not enough coffee, and eventually fried eggs (always served after we’d been there for a bit). Lunch was either prepared by the hotel and consisted of a sandwich, a sweet and a juice or at your option you could go to the local market and buy a sandwich there along with supplements like chips and candy bars. Dinner was a choice of starter, main dish and dessert from a menu of maybe 8 or 10 items, with something new as a special each day. The food was hearty and good, and dinners were really something special.

After a brief rest and bite in Archez, we hiked back up the hill to a bodega (winery) partway back to Canillas. The bodega has been in the same family for generations and the current owner gave us a tour. This region is good for producing Moscatel grapes and wine of the same variety. They actually do two harvests and pressings, one in about August and a second one in October. The first produces a dry wine, the second a much sweeter dessert wine.

After the first day of hiking, Robbie’s knees were barking so she opted out of the second day. Cheri, Cindy and I took on the tougher one. This one left from Cómpeta and immediately climbed above the town, eventually landing us on the Silk Road, a mule trail in use for centuries by the locals for trade with Granada. I can vouch that the folks who used that trail for days to get between Málaga and Granada were tough.

Day 3, Cindy, Cheri and I took the easier route. As you’ll see, this didn’t involve less climbing but it was a bit shorter hike. For about the first two-thirds of the hike we followed a river, then climbed up over the ridge and down to the village of Salares, where we were picked up and driven back to Canillas.

We took a day off of hiking and caught a ride with Gustavo to Nerja, a beautiful costal town that you’ll have to imagine or visit; I took no photos. Robbie found a hotel there where she wouldn’t have to sit and wait for us every day as her knees just weren’t up to the descents; she was able to get into a very nice hotel and see a physical therapist who helped her quite a lot.

The next day was The Big Hike, the toughest of the week, through the Puerto de Competa to Cerro de Lucero, a mountain that dominates the park from the center. I was the only one of our party to choose this hike, C&C took the less strenuous option. The day began with a 40-minute drive over some pretty rough roads to the trailhead, followed by a steep ascent to the Puerto de Cómpeta, a pass through the mountains that sits at about 1500 meters. A moderate descent was followed by a further climb to Lucero at 1774 meters. Franco had a lookout built there after the Civil War because the region was a center of resistance and this mountain allowed them to see any movement for miles around. It was abandoned after the guerillas were finally defeated in 1951 but there’s a grim story that two watchers were found with their throats slit somewhere in that time. Locals were forced to bring food and supplies to the troops up there, so they were not well loved.

Our final hike was a bit less strenuous, though not without elevation changes, to the village of Acebuchal. The hike was beautiful again, ho hum, but the story of the town was fascinating. You should read the story but I’ll provide a precís: long a stopover on the Silk Road, at the time of the Civil War it held about 200 people. The region fought back against the Fascists and was the site of a great deal of bloodshed, centered in Acebuchal. Resistance continued after the war, so in 1948 Franco drove the residents out and destroyed the buildings of the village in an attempt to starve out the Guerillas. The village remained abandoned until 1998, when Antonio “El Zumbo,” who was a village child at the time the town was destroyed, and his wife began the long slow process of rebuilding the village. They have been successful and have created a lovely little town with an amazing restaurant in the center of the wilderness.

The next day we loaded up the vans and returned to Málaga to meet up with Robbie. Cindy, Robbie and Cheri rented a car to drive up the coast to Valencia, hitting Cordoba and Úbeda along the way. I caught the train back to Valencia to await their arrival.

Toledo

Once reassembled, we rented a car and drove to Toledo. Cheri, who had by this time acquired a monumental cold, was a trouper and drove like a champ. Toledo is an ancient city located on the Tagus river some 70 KM southwest of Madrid and recognized since Roman times as a fantastic natural fortification.

After the Romans, Toledo became the capital of the Visigothic kindom in the 6th – 8th Centuries, until it was captured by the Moors and later became a major cultural center after the Reconquista. Its libraries weren’t sacked and Moorish and Jewish scholars translated the texts it held into Latin. The medieval center is very well preserved and contains the fourth largest cathedral in Europe [citation needed] as well as the Alcazar fortress. The modern city extending to the north of the river and the center has become a suburb of Madrid, thanks to the fast train that covers the distance in about a half hour.

Back in the day, Toledo was known for its swords; you might have read of “Toledo steel” in a historical novel. The actual technique and particular alloy that went into Damascene or Toledo steel is lost but there are still shops that sell knives and swords of the multi-folded steel from local forges. We bought a 5″ kitchen knife, then I did some research and discovered that there are a lot of low-quality knockoffs being sold in Toledo. I was lucky to accidentally buy an actually good-quality blade and can attest to its sharpness. The multiple folds in the forging of the blade give it the signature wave pattern.

After a few days I jumped onto the train from Toledo back to Valencia; Cindy, Cheri and Robbie spent a few days together in Madrid before our American friends winged their way back to the States. Now, the weather has turned and it’s fall even in Valencia. The puffy coats and scarves have come out, we’ve enjoyed a couple of Expatsgiving feasts here at the end of November, and Cindy is plotting away on our next adventure.