My hhiking experience ends in Pointe du Raz, on June 20, 2014, where my hiking experience begins.
I walked to a good spot at the end of the Pont-Croix, wrote “Pointe du Raz” in a pizza box, walked accross the street to take a picture and that was it, a car had already pulled up. I got my last ride in an instant.
Laetitia hitch-hiking to Pointe du Raz
The driver was going fishing at Pointe du Raz and dropped me off close to the start of the trail.
What have I learned from this?
Brittany is really nice, the weather is good, the people are nice, the landscape is nice and everything seems so calm. They are “fier d’être Breton”. There are no tolls on the routes and they have kept away the nuclear power plants.
I got a ride very quickly. One thing I didn’t notice, though was that the station I would be dropped off was just outside the road.
I asked a few cars, as after a short while a lady from the station told me it was a bad idea. The traffic was mostly local, I should go outside the station. She gave me a cardboard, told me to write “Vannes s.v.p”, with a smiley face, and said “good luck”.
The traffic was still mostly local. I was in a bad spot. After some time, an old couple stopped and told me “go to the road directly”, I said that wasn’t allowed, and they replied “you certainly won’t get a ride here”…
So the drove me to the entrance of the road and said “good luck”. I wasn’t nervous, but I knew I had to get out of there quick.
Luckily, in some 15 minutes I got a ride. I asked to be dropped off in a station in the road this time.
Once I got to the station, I started writing “Quimper s.v.p” (with a smiley face) on the other side of the cardboard and a nice couple offered me a ride. I hadn’t even finished writing on the cardboard.
They let me in a “covoiturage” spot. It’s just a parking spot near the road. It took the same time to get a ride. A guy offered to drop me off in a good roundabout. I said I had run out of cardboard, and the just happened to have a box in the backseat. I cut myself a piece off the board and he dropped me off.
I hadn’t finished writing on the board for the second time and got offered a ride, but it was too close, so I decided to wait longer. Once I finished writing Audierne (actually I wanted to go to Pont-Croix, but they’re only some 10 km apart) I got offered another ride. It was closer but not quite there. In a minute or two I got offered another ride, directly to Pont-Croix, with a nice family with two little boys.
What have I learned from this? Once in the road, don’t leave it! Also that people in Brittany are really really nice, and that you might not have time to write your destination in the board.
On June 17, 2014, after a few days in Paris I headed towards Rennes. This is the GPSLogger track I followed:
Hitchwiki suggested that hhiking out of Paris toward the direction I wanted might take long.
I went to the specified location and it was filled with parked cars. After half an hour of no success, I decided to get closer to the road.
I the end I walked 4Km stopping at many points for varied periods of time. 3 hours had already gone by. I walked back to the first point and waited another half hour. Finally a cart stopped. A nice Colombian woman offered me a ride to the “Total” station on her way. Not too far, but at least it was on the correct path, and on the road.
By the time we got there, it was already so late that I warned my CouchSurfing host that I might not make it during the day.
After some 20 minutes in the station, two girls came up to me and offered me a ride. But they were going to Nantes, not Rennes. I said I didn’t have a place to stay in Nantes. Marie, one of the girls said she was a CSer as well and that she could probably host me.
I got in the car. After a few phone calls it was settled: she could host me. We got there at around midnight.
What have I learned from this? Paris can be a really hard place to hitch out from. And that there are people nice enough to host a stranded hitch-hiker in the last minute.
On June 15, 2014, after a few days in Brussels, I headed towards Paris.
I followed the directions in Hitchwiki and went to Drogenbos. But I walked all the way to the station instead of asking for a ride to the station.
This time I was more prepared, with a list of the good stations I could stop at on the way to Paris. After a while I got a ride on a van. It was two French guys from a rock band that had played in a festival near Brussels. They took me to a good station, Saint-Ghislain, close to Mons.
After some 15 minutes I got a ride directly to Paris with 2 women. That was much easier that the previous hhiking day.
In Paris they left me close to a Metro Station, it was easy to find myself. I still had no internet connection though.
Five cities, six days, 19 rides and 1700 kilometers.
On June 12, 2014, I started off in Berlin towards Brussels. Hitchwiki showed me there was a good hhiking spot in Raststätte Grunewald. It’s such a good spot that there were already two hhikers who had recently arrived. One of them was a Berlin Tramprennen organizer, so he was quite experienced. I was still too shy to try asking the drivers in German, so they did the talking at first. In less than 5 minutes they got a ride to Mirchendorf for all 3 of us.
The experienced hhiker had a map of all petrol stations in Europe. He explained to me the best way to get to Brussels and had me take pictures of his map all the way to Brussels.
Map with stations on the way to Hanover
They were still doing all the talking and another hhiker showed up in Michendorf. There were now 4 of us, each going to different directions.
The first two hhikers eventually got their rides. The other one wanted to go to Göttenburg. He saw a car with a GÖ license plate passing by us and ran after it. He didn’t return, so now I was alone, and had to talk to people myself.
I started by repeating what the other hhikers were doing earlier. I didn’t understand all they were saying, but basically it was a warm greeting – “Guten Tag” -, followed by asking the drivers if they were going to the city we wanted – “Fahren Sie nach Hanover?” -, or asking them wheter they were going in the direction we wanted – “Fahren Sie in Richtung Hanover?” -, or through a certain road – “Fahren Sie aus die A2?” -. If affirmative, I asked for a ride, with “Können Sie bitte mich mitnehmen?”.
Asking was easy. The hard part was understanding the replies. I would try to follow-up the conversation as much as possible, but sometimes I had to ask to switch to English.
After some time, I got my first ride. A couple drove me close to Hanover to a Tankstelle – petrol station – I had on the map.
The driver was Ukranian and she wanted to practice English, so we switched languages. She mentioned she wanted to spend her vacations back home in Ukraine but the political situation there made her change her mind.
So, I was close to Hanover in a petrol station and started asking for rides again. This time I was more confident. I got a short ride until just after Hanover, in another big petrol station.
I spent some 20 minutes there talking to people with no success. At some point, a car pulled over, and a guy with long white hair offered me a ride. This was Michael, from the city of Titz (he says all English speakers laugh when he says this). He was going back home from Berlin. His MP3 player’s battery had just died, so I plugged in my solar charger and we got music. The selection was really good: lots of Blues, Jazz, Rock, and Country. He left me close to Titz, in a small rest station which he said he used to hhike from all the time in the 70’s.
Laetitia riding in Michael’s car listening to good music
That was my first big mistake. I didn’t follow the picture I had from the map. It might have been a good place in the 70’s, but it was a horrible place now.
Laetitia waiting for a car from the 70’s
It took me over an hour to finally get a ride out of there, which left me in another small station inside Belgium, close to Aachen. As soon as we crossed the border, my mobile data plan ceased to work. It was good only inside Germany. So I couldn’t access hitchwiki in any form anymore.
After some time there, a worker from the station told me that was a bad spot for where I wanted to go, that he was going back home and would drive me to a better station in the way.
Waiting with a full moon isn’t so bad
In that station, I met the first French-speaking drivers. That’s when I realized my French was bad. Another hour spent there. I got a ride for some 30km to the next station.
At this point it was already quite late. It took me another hour to get a ride, from a Dutch guy who had already been driving for 10 hours and was quite tired. He left me in the Zaventem Airport close to Brussels.
It was midnight, the last bus to the city centre had already left. I got a bus to the Botanique, quite far from where I had to go. The only way left was walking, with the 17 kg backpack. Hey, I actually want to hike, right? This was training.
What have I learned from this? That a hitch-hiking spot that was good in the 70’s might be a horrible place now.
Hitchwiki is a wiki – kind of like wikipedia – where people can share any information about hitch-hiking. Anyone can add information, whether it’s about the best spots to hitch out of a city, the best way to hitch into a city, what the regional laws are, what to do or what not to do.
It’s awesome, really. There’s a plethora of information. There’s even a map for easy visualization of the good and the bad spots.
I used hitchwiki constantly to get information on my way from Berlin to Finistère.
I should spend two more days hitch-hiking. One day to Rennes, and the next day to Finistère, to some place close to Pointe du Raz.
Paris to Rennes
I’m still not sure where I’ll stay on the second day. It will depend on where I can find Couch Surfing hosts. Somewhere like Pont-Croix, Douarnenez, or Plogoff…
On Thursday the 12th June I’ll hitch-hike to Brussels. Google Maps says that’s 771 km on the A2, which should take around 7 hours. But hitch-hiking can (and will) take much longer.
I’ll be leaving Berlin around 7 AM, and I’ll be really happy if I can make it to Brussels on the same day. I will be meeting some friends there, but they leave on Saturday morning.
I will try my chance on CouchSurfing in Brussels (and ask at a few other places along the way just to make sure I have a place to sleep in case I can’t make it to my destination in one day). Needless to say, I am still unprepared and haven’t put together most of the gear I’ll need in my journey. This extended weekend in Berlin was exhausting, I didn’t get much done…
