The GR20 -- And The Choice Not To Finish

I love the outdoors and I love to hike. So, when I heard about the famed GR20 hike, 180km, across the length of Corsica, I put it into the back of my mind to someday do it. Well, this summer, I carved out two weeks to do so and signed up with a British outfit (I had joined their group for the Morocco trip last winter) to tackle the trail. The suggested time is 15 days, but the outfit cut out one day, and then squeezed 14 days into 12.

However, after three days, I realized this wasn't for me. Now that it has been about five days since I stopped, I've had time to reflect on my decision and although I am sad that I chose not to finish, the reasons I did elect to terminate my trip (note which word I am NOT using, because language is important) appear more logical and correct with time, and they also "feel" right. As I've become older, I've learned that I am much more intuitive and trust my gut more often than I was younger, or at least I am more conscious of being one who trusts my "intuition."

Here's why I chose to end my journey:

1) I didn't have walking poles. Something as basic as this was a huge issue. They are optional, but it turns out they would have been quite useful in providing balance and distributing the weight from my legs to, at times, arms.

2) I wasn't feeling any joy. And sometimes dread. Each night, before the next day, we would review the next days plan, and the first three days were each scheduled for 9 hours, which because of my slow pace, ended up being more like 11 hours. We would leave at 630AM and finish at 530PM. Knowing that it would be such a long day (and there were no scheduled rest days) made it a huge daunting "task." And it shouldn't feel like a task.

3) I wasn't feeling any elation. Usually, at the end of each hiking day, I feel this great sense of excitement and accomplishment when I get to the end of the day. I wasn't having those moments, I would arrive and then, because time was running short, have to take care little tasks before dinner (granted I didn't have to cook dinner it we were at refuges which cooked for us) and then right to bed. There wasn't anytime to actually savor being outdoors, because we ended so late in the day.

4) Personal Safety. Yeah, this was a big one. We were often hiking on open faces that had some sheer drops. Plus were were rarely on flat ground, generally going up and down "mountains", across them and then, as I termed it, putting ourselves through human body puzzles, getting through rock spaces. It's fun, but not as much as I felt like I was doing it. Then the descents were incredibly steep and my legs weren't used to it. On the third day, in the morning, we had a descent in which my left leg basically would no longer hold any weight. It was scary. After a rest, I made it, but downhills were really something I dreaded and feared that my left leg wouldn't hold out.

5) I'll call this, "the check-off factor." There were 12 of us in the group. I would say that for a majority of them, they were on this trip to "check-off" the GR20 from their list of big hikes they've accomplished. I don't begrudge them that goal, but it make it seem as though the hike was a "task" and not a "joy".

6) Scenery....repetitive. After three days, I feel as though I had seen the scenery that I would see for the following nine days. It was pretty enough, but not enough to push me forward for another nine days, and through the "pain".






The mountains of Corsica. The GR20 goes through 180km across the spine of the island. You see that mountain in the distance, we climbed over that. 




The Col de Bevella. We climbed over that "notch" just to the right of the spires, then down into the valley and then up to the spot where I am taking the picture, which is at 7,000 feet.






A look back at the 2nd day hike. The "notch" in the ridge in the distance is what we climbed through, then down, up, down, and then across the ridge which is out of the picture to the right. The hiking was so intense that I didn't have opportunities to take out my camera and take pictures during the day. Mostly because I was too tired and there were places that I simply had to concentrate so much on staying on my feet.






And, I wasn't the first of our dozen to leave the group. One member slipped on the first day and twisted her knee. We had to carry her pack up the last hill and then she was helicoptered out. I didn't want to be the second to have to call the helicopter.






Here's what my knees looked like after three days. The rock was pure granite and every time I slipped, or scraped my knee as I climbed over/around something, a new scratch. I'm going to have some good scars.






I ended at day 3, because it was a place where we were on a road and had access to our bags. This man, Augustine, was the transporter of bags to the next stop. I hitched a ride with him and since he spoke Italian, we had a great couple hours. These four hours together with him might have been the highlight of my trip.

After Augustine and I parted, I hitched a ride down to the capitol of Corsica, Ajaccio where I spent a day at the beach....







.....eating good seafood and took a tour of Napoleon Bonaparte's birthplace.

I'm still thinking about the trip, but it's almost a done deal. I'm sad because I wanted to do it, but happy that I did the right thing for me. How many times have I been a teacher and suggested a student not do something or to admit they weren't ready for it. I was able to make this decision without external prompting. I also take responsibility for not doing enough prior research on the trip. I really should have read more about it and done my due diligence. Lessons for the future......

Berlin

After the Museum, I spent evening and the next day wandering the city. If in Germany, it has to be CURRYWURST. In this case, deep fried with Potato Salad.







When in Berlin, one has to make a visit to the famed Checkpoint Charlie. That, along with a visit to the Museum of the Berlin Wall the next day, got me thinking about who I am. If I had been an East German citizen, would I have been one of those people who risked everything to get out? Or would I have been passive and simply accepted it, and even liked, the order and rigidity?






I'm scared to admit that there's a 50/50 chance I would have been the accepting citizen.






Can it really be today, 20 years after the wall, that the advertisement right at Checkpoint Charlie is for an Apple product? And in the area below the billboard, where the stations and used to be is now a makeshift beach where people can go for drinks? Amazing.






Brandenburg Gate at night. Peaceful and beautiful. Berlin has such great amazing old architecture and some crazy new stuff.





This block sculpture park is the Memorial to Murdered Jews of Europe.





All I could think about was how fun it would to play capture the flag here.





Walking around town, I loved the stop and go signs.





How could you not be cheered up by the jaunty green man!

Pergamon Museum

Berlin! First stop (because I got on the bus going the wrong direction and therefore stuffed my backpack in a locker) the Pergamon Museum





So, this is the model of the Pergamon Altar. The alter, at Pergamon in modern day Turkey, was constructed in the 184 BC by Eumenes II in honor of the goddess who brought the Pergamene's victory over their enemies.




Here you can see the altars location within the city of Pergamon.





Here at the museum, the western side of the Pergamon Altar has been reconstructed. It's awesome and so amazing to be able to climb up the stairs and walk all around it.





Beyond the great structure itself, is the frieze that runs around the entire temple. While on the steps, facing west, the museum has reconstructed much of the eastern frieze. The entire frieze is a gigantomachy, the defeat of chaos and giants by the Olympian gods. Here we have Artemis throwing down and a giant/serpent.





The frieze is HELLENISM at its finest. It's the movement and emotion in contrast to the static and "emotionless" of classicism. Here on the right, we have Athena, with her left hand, lifting up a giant by the head before throwing him to the ground, while with her right hand she beats off an attack with her shield.





Notice the goddess with the calm face and the pain/terror on the gods face.





The frieze even is squeezed into the area bordered by the steps. Here the ocean gods are forcing the enemy towards the mouth of a waiting lion.





Here, in another room, is the reconstruction of the gate to the Temple of Athena, also excavated by Pergamon.





Just seeing the Pergamon Altar would have made me happy, but I step into the next room and find the Market Gate of Miletus. Created in the 2nd century AD and was the grand portal to the towns central market. It is so well preserved because it was buried in an 12th century earthquake.






And the hits keep on coming with the reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate of Babylon. It was constructed by King Nebuchadnezzar in 575BC.





The door here is the 8th door to the inner city of Babylon. Actually, the one reconstructed here in Berlin is the SMALLER of the two. The larger one is in storage.





This is the reconstruction of the processional walkway leading to the gate. The actual processional walkway was actually wider.





One of the lions (there are also dragons) that guard the door. Each brick was individually fired and glazed and set into place.





The Germans, back in the early 1900's were quite active in archeological work in the Middle East. There is a great islamic art section. Here is the wall of a Umayyad winter palace commissioned by Al-Walid II in 743BC.





The Konya Prayer Niche









There was a great exhibit about a private art collection that was bombed during WWII. The collection was broken into pieces like this.





It's amazing how the historians can piece together the original piece. Can you imagine finding fragments of a frieze and then trying (such as the gigantomachy of the Pergamon Altar) and then piecing it back together, without actually knowing what the original picture is?





A last view of the amazing Pergamon Altar. One great event that happened during my visit to the museum was I met a fellow Bay Area museum goer. We ended up hanging out during our museum stay and then met up for drinks the next day.

Bauhaus and Lutherstadt Wittenberg

Leaving Leipzig with the goal of reaching Berlin, I got on the train headed for Lutherstadt Wittenberg, but while reading my guide book, I saw that if I took a small detour I would end up in the town of Dessau, which is famous for being the home of Bauhaus architecture. So, in the spirit of, "follow where the wind takes you", I made the detour and stopped off in Dessau to walk through the Bauhaus campus of Gropius.

This is the backside of the original Bauhaus "Bauhaus". What I take from this is that when these buildings were first designed and built in the 1920's, they were sparse and non-detailed in comparison to the richly ornamented buildings of their predecessors.

They are stripped to their essence, radical for their time....

...they seem just kind of "run of the mill" today. But to put myself into the shoes of a citizen in the 1920's and having only seen the highly detailed stuff from before, this must have been radical. I guess that's how we might see those Frank Gehry buildings today.

Martin Luther, yeah THAT Martin Luther.

Here in the Saxony-Anhalt Region's town of Lutherstadt Wittenberg (formerly just Wittenberg) was where on October 31st, 1517, Martin Luther posted his famous 95 theses criticizing the Catholic church.  

I arrived in the early evening and took a walk around town as the sunset. Beautiful. Here's the Stadtkirche, in which Martin Luther gave many a sermon.

This is the tower (added after the 1500's) of the Schlosskirche which is across town and where....

....on these doors, Martin Luther posted his famous 95 theses.

Ok, actually, that was a picture of the real door. The church is undergoing renovation and this is what it really looks like.

The evening I was out walking around, there was some kind of performance going on and I ducked into the back to listen to some religious music (I think, or it was opera). But one of the best things of the night was I was out at a cafe getting tea and cake and it turns out the cafe I was at was run by Sicilians who had come to the former East Germany because ten years ago, there was a demand of Italian food and gelato (much like the same migration of Italians to West Germany after WWII). They were so happy to meet an Italian "speaker."

This small chapel, right next to the Stadtkirche, is the Corpus Christi Chapel, in which in 1518, Martin Luther appealed to the Pope to set up a council to try Luther as a heretic.

In 1520, at the place of this oak, Luther burned his document declaring his excommunication from the Church. Man, the early 1500's were full of action in Europe with both the Renaissance and the start of the Protestant Revolution. Whew.

I like this statue of Martin Luther that I found in my hotel.