Our first and biggest piece of advice the GR11 and to still be smiling at the end is to: REST! We know not everyone has the luxury of time, but if you can, take days off the walking / walk shorter days. If you consider these extra days when planning, it also gives you some buffer time for things to go wrong, from injury&sickness to trail section closures and storms.
Youll need time for general trail life such as shopping, washing and repairing/replacing items, but try to make sure you get some actual chill time in too. On this note, weve made a list of some of our favourite rest day excursions which, if you like a bit of history / something different then you might enjoy knowing :
1. Candanchu - a ghost town during the summer, but there is a chair lift that goes up to some lakes if you wanted a more relaxed walk. The city of Jaca is also near by, accessible by bus, which has a museum of military miniatures which was really well presented and interesting. Its also worth stopping to see Canfranc station if you do go that way, just
2. Puen de San Chaime - the town of Benasque is just a 3km riverside walk away and worth a visit. Only small it has the older Spanish vibe with its medieval street but also many good outdoor shops; a perfect spot for replacing broken shoes and walking poles!
3. Tavascan - a pretty town to stop in, there is a Hydroelectric plant there which looked great to go and see as it is all underground BUT YOU NEED TO BOOK! so unfortunately we did not get to go, but have heard good things about it.
4. Encamp - not the best town being busy and loud, but as we ended up here for three days we did find some nice spots. There are a couple of great cafes here the other side of the river and the path running alongside the river was nice and pretty with all the flowers. There is also a car museum here which was small but interesting to look around.
numbered street plaques with information on them about the history of the area which were interesting to find and read; in English too! Theres also many walks that start and end here not that we were looking for that. And there is a Michelin Star restaurant here! Surprised us too but unfortunately no veggie options for us; looked popular though.
7. La Jonquera - an ugly trucker stop place really, with a slightly dodgy vibe, but the old street area is nice and where you can find an amazing museum (MUME) about the excile of thousands of people during the civi war and into the world war. Theres also a really cool and quirky cafe that does fab smoothies.
8. Cadaques - such a pretty, though we can imagine busy in main summer, place with lots of quirky shops and a maze of streets and cobble steps. A great place to rest at the end of the trail, accessible from Cap de Creus by bus, and has amazing veggie friendly food! The best we had over the whole trail. Also has Dalis house museum which is worth a visit; an interesting and weird place to wonder around.
It can be quick and just a few simple stretches or a longer session but doing something each day really really helped us!
- Take the extra sugar sachet from your coffee or salt&pepper sachet from lunch to keep back for your camping fine dining.
- Have a way of messaging people. With little signal in the mountains, having the Garmin inreach mini device meant we could still send a preset message everyday to the parents so they knew we were ok, as well as knowing we had a way to get help if we needed it. We also had the route on this app
so we could use it as a very basic navigation tool if our phones died and we lost the waymarks (thankfully didnt happen).
- Leave no trace; a lightweight trowel and portable bidet really helped with this when it came to using natures toilet. The plastic bags you get when buying fruit were also handy binbags to carry all our waste out.
Is hard by and pretty impossible if youre vegan. Be prepared for a lot of tomato on bread, patatas bravas, tortillas, crisps and cheese sandwiches.
