Final Thoughts About The EPW

“These views are beautiful!”

“That was delicious!”

“Do you see an arrow?

“We have to go down THAT path?”

“They’re putting their pant leg bottoms on. This can’t be good”

“What are we doing out here?!”

We embarked on another walk this year that was dubbed the European Peace Walk. And although this newly organized path seemed to be created with good intentions, unfortunately it needs a bit of work. According to the EPW website, “The European Peace Walk was started 100 years after the beginning of World War I as a way to celebrate the current European culture of peace and honor the past war-torn history.”  What we found was if we wanted to understand the history of the countries and the effects of wars, we would have to do much digging and searching on our own to find it. The trail may loosely follow the old “Iron Curtain”, but it didn’t necessarily lead us to many memorials, museums or specific sites to learn about what happened. We did much exploration on our own, as we always do, but the walk itself was more about getting point to point. That, in and of itself, is not bad. We enjoy meeting the people of the regions and learning about their lives and cultures. But the EPW organization has a ways to go before coming close to fulfilling their purpose statement.

As for the trail itself, it’s a mixed bag. Sometimes the path takes you to gorgeous views and through picturesque villages. Other times you will find yourself fighting through overgrown paths full of briars and stinging nettles (Hint: to avoid getting stung, put on your long pants).  You will also have times when deciphering where the trail actually is becomes very stressful. Many people talk of getting lost. We can understand that. Those who have walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain may have become accustomed to simply following arrows and think they can do the same here.  If they do, they will get lost (btw, the EPW website specifically states this is NOT the Camino). This path requires you to follow the PDF cue sheet that is provided. It somewhat follows the arrows. As for the maps (Plot a Route images) in that file, well, sometimes they are completely different routes. The extra work of almost constant navigation adds stress as well as mental fatigue (The EPW organization has work to do before this can truly be an enjoyable way). Another variable for us was the heat. Temperatures in the 90s daily had us starting our walks at dawn. Then add to this, several back-to-back 30+ kilometer days and you had a recipe for a very tough journey. We are somewhat experienced, physically fit and able to adapt but, we would not recommend this for the majority of people out there. Many who attempt this are ill prepared, hence, why 80 to 90% of those who do this use transportation for themselves and/or their backpacks (according to multiple hosts).

We have done walks in Europe for the last six years.  This year’s walk was difficult and had us questioning if we had made a mistake.  Not only did the aforementioned variables factor into the difficulty, we also had the added responsibility to help the others who were walking the trail.  It wasn’t a requirement but, it’s just part of our nature to help others and we couldn’t simply ignore that. Our daughter, Abigail, commented that after reading our blog she didn’t feel we had as much fun as previous years.  She’s probably right.  We did have fun and we did enjoy ourselves at times. We also met some really great people. But the tough times were just that…tough. And it wore on us. The question that came to us was were we supposed to learn something from this? We are not sure of the answer to that, at least not yet.  The one thing we do know is that we have a great sense of accomplishment in that we completed something that very few others have done.

At one time during the early part of the walk we questioned whether we wanted to be out on the trail but now, two weeks after getting home, we can definitely say that we are glad we did it and that we pushed ourselves beyond our comfort zone. No regrets, just thankful for the opportunity.