New Year Hikes!

Happy New Year!

I can’t wait for a return to a sense of schedule and routine. P’s here for a few weeks, so generally when he’s here any sense of routine’s usually out. Plus side, I get lunches and dinners made for me! It doesn’t help here the Holiday festivities continue until the 6th January or Kings Day (Spain’s main present giving day). Everything at the moment is like a waiting game.To celebrate the New Year we opted for a series of hikes. New Years Eve we hiked part of the Carretera de les Aigues in Parc Collserola over looking Barcelona. We’ve been many times, setting off from different starts. I prefer the start near Pedralbes as there’s generally less people! We continued along part of the 30km Parc de Collserola yellow and white trail we stubbled across Boxing Day on a trail further inside the park. In keeping with getting there at last light, we made it in time for a little daylight before the sun set for the last time in 2017 before braving the wind whipping the trail. I had some serious tangles later!One day until the full moon. What I love about this trail is the path is light so any moonlight illuminates it without the need of a torch/flashlight.We stayed in to ring in the New Year, Spanish style. Spanish New Year tradition’s 12 grapes ate in time to the 12 strikes of Midnight from the the tower clock in Puerta de Sol in Madrid on TV. Eat all 12 in time, 12 months good luck.  Wikipedia says it was due to an excess of grapes one year. Anyways, we ate them in time!I was up early to say hi to the first sunrise of the year My New Years tradition. Then it was off the gym to make it back early to walk part of the Cami de Ronda or Smugglers Route from Lloret de Mar. The idea was the get there with at least an hour and half of daylight. We got there just as the sun set. I’d love to go back in daylight as the route I’m sure is even more spectacular when it’s light. Plus I’d like to visit the botanical gardens located there.The wind didn’t let up, it hasn’t all week, (I think it’s the tail end of Storm Eleanor hitting further North. Going back along the motorway on the motorbike I couldn’t stop laughing thinking what people were seeing as we passed. 2 people riding huge bike with the their heads down like it’s a MotoGP race so the wind didn’t blow them around so much! It was scary over some viaducts how strong the wind was) however this time it had more bite. Thankfully we were wrapped up warm so we were good against the cold.Part of the path is through woods and it was kinda calming being surrounded by darkness. I’m not used to darkness living in a city. I’m used to light so it was nice for my eyes had a mini break. For a while. I had my bargain find from Decathlon stowed away in my rucksack. A €7 headlamp as it was so dark you could just see ahead. I freaked out slightly seeing orange lights up ahead until I realised they were cats eyes! We’d just been talking about street sign illumination and cats eyes so it was kinda fitting to seeing pairs of orange discs in the distance.Hiking back we debated getting a pizza from the many pizzerias (ok, it was so I could pee. The public toilets I skipped and held!). We settled instead on a cup of peppermint tea out the wind and vegan beef jerky aka mango slices and trial mix that we took with us, in case we couldn’t find a cafe to warm up before heading back. And that’s it, New Year Hikes!

How did you celebrate New Year? Are you a stay in type or big party type? Wishing you a great 2018 ahead!