On a sunny Sunday we set out for a hike in the Garraf Natural Park. For me it was my last hike of the Catalan summer before heading north for my summer hibernation in Iceland. It was a hot summer day. For a northerner like me it was beyond the last chance to go for a hike before it got too warm. To combat the heat I made sure I had plenty of liquid.

We started at the Garraf train station and followed the forest path up the steep hill into the Garraf Natural Park. At Can Lluçà we left the GR-92 long distance path and hit the road. We continued our hike along a fairly level old gravel roads to Plana Novella.

Plana Novella is an old country estate, later turned into an agricultural colony. Since 1996 it hosts a Tibetan Buddhist Monastery — Sakya Tashi Ling.

We took a decent break at the monastery. Took out our lunch boxes and ate our sandwiches. We bought some coffee, tea and water from the monks while enjoying the view of the monastery, with its prayer wheels, prayer flags and the stupa.

After the break we continued our hike down to Sitges. The first part following gravel roads to Jafra, where we again joined the GR-92 forest path, following its ups and downs, gradually leading into the GR-5 path down to the to the Mediterranean coast at Sitges.

The result was a nice but warm summer hike. There was no shortage of sun and I truly needed every drop of the 3+ liters of liquid I had for the hike. In total we walked 22km and we finished it in just under six hours.