Great Mediterranean Coast Hike - Day 1 | Argelès-sur-Mer, Collioure, Port-Vendres

We are excited to share with you these video series of our Mediterranean hike that we did this year and hopefully it will be continued. These video series is devoted to the Catalonian part of it, starting from the French village Argelès-sur-Mer in Pyrénées-Orientales all the way to the Spanish village of Cadaqués and Cap de Creus cape on the Costa Brava. Immerse yourself in the peaceful holiday mood and we bet you'll find a place to put on your travel bucket list and to visit on your next vacation. Or even dare to do this hike yourself!

It was our first major hike that we ever did, we ended up doing 80+ km and it took us 7 days to accomplish. We chose to go backpacking, carrying our tent, and stay in the camping sites on the way. This hike is great to do in spring(May-June) or autumn(September-October), as the heat in summer can be pretty extreme. We enjoyed so much doing it in the late May-beginnings of June with all the blossom and smells around along with favorable weather conditions that we would highly recommend it to everyone. The hike can be broken up in as many parts as you wish by doing as many kms a day as you can. We did on average 12-15 km a day being loaded with 10-15kg backpacks and found it to be a golden mean, but depending on your physical state you may choose to do more or less. It will also depend on whether you'll go with a heavy backpack or not. The route is very well signed and we have a very little complains about it. On the way you can either stay in the hotels, guest houses etc. or campings as we did, and became the true fans of this kind of stay. The camping sites are very developed in the area and can meet everyone's needs, not to mention the reasonable prices that is available to everyone. This kind of experience you won't forget. Also it is a good idea to stay for longer in a village that you really like to get to know it better and then continue on with the hike. The whole experience makes up for an unforgettable active trip!

It was our first day of the Great Mediterranean Hike when we walked 17 km from Argeles Plage to Port-Vendres outskirts. It is all started the night before when it was raining cats and dogs and the wind was blowing fiercely. Because of that we woke up pretty late in the morning and even considered for a moment to give up on a hike because of the bad weather. But we've been already postponing this hike for so long because of that so finally we put ourselves together and started walking. Luckily the weather was favourable all day long. And even though it was the weekend we didn't met too many people on the way. The day was full of great views, different landscapes, and exceptional variety of flowers (some of them we haven't even seen before!). We enjoyed very much the route that goes from Argeles to Couilloure, it is not very long, but still offers you all the richness of landscapes of the region. We got lost several times in small villages but finally managed to find the route signs, just had to look close. There was no long gaps between the marking, they were everywhere. First, we walked through Argeles village which is by our opinion a perfect holiday destination for everybody with nice wide sandy beaches, lots of activities offered and plenty of campings to stay in. Then we entered the village of Couilloure where the architecture that surrounds you speaks for itself, it immerses you in the history and creates bohemian atmosphere. Finally we reached Port-Vendres where we had a little time to spend but our first impression was that it is an old city with quite a big port with deep waters (we've seen a cruise ship parked there) and active fishing market(we could say it by a strong smell of fresh fish). At the end of the day we were running out of time, the sun was setting and we realized that we won't get to our planned destination which was Banyuls-sur-Mer. It meant that we had to walk around 8 km more to our camping and we very already more than tired. So we had no other option left that just find a place to stealth camp. So we had to gather our powers and walk several kms more till we find a spot at a vineyard close to the seaside. It was the only place with relatively flat surface and it is the most unusual place we've camped at so far. So we quickly prepared and ate some dinner and fell asleep right away overwelmed by the first and is it turned out the hardest day of our trip.


Watch the full video here: https://youtu.be/plBqOl0xz8g

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Wow, what a beautiful hike! I am amazed there are so many rural areas next to the Mediterranean. I was interested to see what the campgrounds are like, but I don't think I saw any in your video.

Hello, thank you, we really glad that you enjoyed our video! It was also a discovery for us, it was the best long hiking experience for us so far. We will show all the campgrounds in our next episodes that are coming soon. The next episode is out now here https://youtu.be/gWRvNZCHek4

Great Mediterranean Coast Hike - Day 2 | Anse de Paulilles, Banyuls-sur-Mer

Hello, everyone! We continue to share with you the video series of our Mediterranean coast hike that we did this year. It was our second day.

After an exhausting first day we slept very well and we woke up at a sunrise to an incredibly beautiful scenery of the little bay, swaying yacht and calm sea waters. The atmosphere was very peaceful. And in these moments you realize that nothing can compare with the wild camping spots, they are always special and memorable. That day we took it slow and with no hurry we had the substantial breakfast(luckily we had the leftover veggies from yesterday), got everything packed and finally started walking. Our plan for the day was to make no more than 7 km until our camping site in Banyuls-sur-Mer. First we walked along several beaches at the seaside, passed through some bunkers left from the World War II and got to the place "Anse de Paulilles". It looked like a public park but actually in the past this territory occupied an old dynamite factory that now is open for the visitors as well as the museum of traditional Catalan boats. Overall the whole area around the French-Spanish border has a lot of installations left from the World War II, that is part of the history but kind of sad to see in these beautiful places. After we came out of the park the path continued going along the flowery cliffs and we got to see lots of stunning views, so we enjoyed this part a lot. Finally we were getting close to the city Banyuls-sur-Mer and we were rushing to find some supermarkets open to buy some food, that unfortunately were closed after 14pm because it was Sunday. So keep that in mind that Sundays in most of the area are short days in the majority of the shops. Then we got to our camping site "Camping municipal La Pine" and found a nice cosy place to camp. This camping is situated at the outskirts of the city and part of it is in the real forest areas(with no electricity though and available only for tents), which we liked a lot, we could hear the birds singing and all the forest sounds. Fortunately we were able to buy some food at the only shop that was opened in the evening. The rest of the day we were chilling out, eating and relaxing. So we had a really good rest and the new day was waiting for us...

Watch the full video here: https://youtu.be/gWRvNZCHek4

Hope you enjoyed our video, let us know if you want us to continue sharing the videos from these series. We would love to read your feedback - it is very important to us! Thank you!