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GR11 (Spanish Pyrenees) Thru-Hike

Home Page > Camping > GR11 (Spanish Pyrenees) Thru-Hike

Between April and July 2026, we plan to walk the Spanish Pyrenees GR11 hike eastwards from Irun (Basque Country) to Llança (Catalonia), crossing Navarre and Aragon. The total distance is expected to be about 800 km with the official route shown on the map below. It's highly likely that the route we walk will change as we are starting about a month too early in the season, and will need to make adjustments to avoid deep snow. The route shown on the map will be updated as we progress. Places/locations we stay will be shown on the map using a marker (dot).




We ended up with 5 days off trail between the Scottish National Trail and starting the GR11. We spent one night in Perth, Scotland, two nights in Edinburgh then flew to Biarritz, France and had a night there before catching a couple of buses to Hendaya and walking a couple of k's over the border to Iruna, Spain. We enjoyed all these days and I saw a physio in Edinburgh for some treatment for my knee, which turned out to be an IT band issue which is apparently very common in female hikers.

So here we are now in Basque country which is beautiful and warm, although a little rainy, but still warm even with that! We need to get used to the available foods in Spain which we remember now does not really have convenience foods, like the sorts of things we have been taking on the trail. No cuppa soups here. Spaniards like their food fresh! We did get a two minute noodle and instant rice meal. The two minute noodles were very expensive compared with the UK, but I guess we weren't shopping at a Lidl in Irun, there was one but it was far from our hotel. We are here long enough to figure all this out. We will have to find something Spanish to fill the sizeable culinary gap left by tablet and shortbread!

We set off from our hotel today at 09:00 and had a cafe con leche and espresso on the way out of Irun. We also had to stop at a DHL service point as Mike needed to return part of a delivery (shorts which were the wrong size). The bloke at the shop could not print the return shipping label but he made a plan which seemed convoluted and inconvenient for him and involved about 4 mobile phones and photographing the return label Mike had been sent. In the end he assured us he would take care of it. This communication was all in French and a bit difficult to understand but as always these people you meet in small towns will try to help. The GR11 heads immediately for the hills with a big climb on a small road out of the city. The first few kilometres were very steep walking and we were grateful for our walking poles. Mike was wearing his new hiking boots which he had ordered to be mailed to our hotel in Irun. They went well today and he likes them. They are the same brand as his previous boots, but a different model. The GR11 is a major hiking route and as such is very well signposted with red and white painted stripes and also uses well-established tracks. We had rain this morning and this afternoon but did not feel under pressure with the weather. The rain feels like summer rain, you don't even need to put a rain jacket on.

The route was quiet and there were no other hikers. In total we climbed 903m and also had a long descent. We made use of three great picnic areas for hikers, one just out of Irun, one after about 7 km where we sat at a picnic bench and had lunch, watching a pair of horses walk about and the third a little off the GR11 where we ended up camping as it has a water fountain. We ended up getting to the end of our day at 17:00 and we had a lovely view from our little campspot which we could enjoy. The sun sets at 21:00 so evenings are more relaxed and so much warmer.


The only sounds last night were the hoot of an owl and the gurgling of the water fountain at our tent. What a perfect campsite! This morning we woke to misty conditions as cloud lay over the hilltops but it soon burned off. It's amazing what a change the weather is. In Scotland we didn't drink any water other than tea and coffee and there was water everywhere. Today we were thirsty with the climbs and the warm temperatures but water is not as readily available! We had 8 km to walk to Bera, town of the day. Basque country is hilly and there were views of hills and steep roads and tracks all around. There were were quite a few people out hiking and cycling today, being a public holiday Friday. Bera is a pretty place, but the small supermarkets were closed due to Labour Day. There was a coffee shop open with a bakery and we were able to buy bread for two days (Elizondo is the next town), eggs, mayonnaise, spicy sausage and jam. We sat in the square behind the shop and hard-boiled the eggs to eat later with mayonnaise on bread. After the town was a steep climb which was just straight up a track, so we had a long rest at the top.

The trail just wandered along after this, all on good tracks, through forest, winding along. We picked up water at a fountain and filtered from a stream. At the top of all the climbs was La Purdie, on the French border. There was a restaurant and quite a few people in campervans, on motorcycles and bicycles. There was a herd of horses with foals and all were amazingly tame, walking right up to the people and passed you as you sat in the shade. We picked up a few litres of water for a shower here and a few hundred metres up the track was a large, flat grassy area and also a shelter and bench. It was a lovely place to sit and eat, and we had our shower. Thunderstorms were rolling by when we set the tent up, once again with an outlook over the rolling hills. We had left Spain briefly at La Purdie but are about 3 m back in Spain, which explains the great camping!