Cape to Kapp…
Those who have followed Marvin’s adventures from the beginning may remember that when this was all just a project and to help them better understand the plans we had for our truck, the Zocama team asked us what we thought we would do with it, our answer was: cross Europe and Asia from end to end, to Vladivostok…
That was in 2021, and a few months later, a lunatic autocrat decided to invade Ukraine, triggering a series of upheavals at the European (and global) level and, incidentally, closing us off any possibility of going beyond the eastern borders of the European Union…
True adventurers will say that we could always go south to avoid crossing Russia, but let’s be honest, we are only soft adventurers… And anyway, this option would only take us as far as Kazakhstan, and even if we managed to cross to Mongolia without going through Russia, somehow, we would find ourselves at the Chinese border, without many options to go further due to the restrictions on entering China for foreign vehicles and driving licenses.
As the global situation at the start of 2024 had not improved much (that’s an understatement…), we had to rethink our big project with Marvin, and one of the possible alternatives seemed quite logical to us: if we could not cross the Europe and Asia from west to east, at least we could still do it from South to North!… Time to check a few details with Google, and we had our goals: we would start from the southernmost point to the northernmost point of Europe!
A small geographical clarification
Anyone looking at a map will notice, after looking up where the North Cape is, that there are still a few islands even further north. Since Svalbard is a Norwegian territory, and Norway is part of Europe (although not the European Union), technically the northernmost point of Europe would be the tip of the island of Rossøya, i.e. the northernmost island of the Svalbard archipelago.
In fact, some might even argue that we should probably consider the northernmost point of Europe to be Cape Fligely, on Rudolf Island, Franz Josef Land, Russia. Regardless of any political considerations of the events of the past two years, the border between Europe and Asia has always been a controversial issue for geographers, and Franz Josef Land has the misfortune to lie in just that area which no one ventures to define categorically as Europe or Asia. Furthermore, Svalbard, like Franz Josef Land, are islands, and anyone who has ever tried to get to an island other than by boat will know why this whole discussion is a bit fruitless in our case…
The northernmost point of the European continent is therefore the North Cape (Nordkapp in the local language), located exactly at 71°08′02″N, and that is where we intend to arrive!
On the south side, things aren’t really any simpler. Technically, the southernmost point of Europe is Cape Trypiti, on the Greek island of Gavdos, or at least this would be the least ambiguous southernmost point of Europe. But there are also two other contenders. The island of Cyprus has cultural ties with Europe and is also part of the European Union. The southernmost point of Cyprus is the British base at Akrotiri. The Portuguese Madeira Islands border Europe and Africa and their southernmost point is on the island of Bugio. La Restinga, on the island of El Hierro in the Spanish Canaries, is even further south and could be considered politically, if not geographically, part of Europe, but then any territory in French Polynesia would also be, politically, the southernmost point of Europe, and that would make things really very complicated…
So, if as for the northernmost point, we only consider continental Europe, the southernmost point is the tip of Tarifa island (or Isla de las Palomas), in Spain (36°00’00.2″ N). This point is located on a small island connected to the coast by a road since 1808, and so it is technically no longer an island. And even if we were really purists and did not consider artificial lands to be continental, the southernmost point of the European continent would be located, in any case, a little further north, at 36°00’25″N, at Cape Tarifa, where the Playa de los Lances and Playa Chica end, and where the famous road begins which, in 1808, added another 0.22 km2 to the surface of the European continent.
The itinerary
Once the geographical aspects clarified, all that remained was to define an itinerary to go from Andorra to Tarifa, from Tarifa to the North Cape, and… return from the North Cape to Andorra. This second stage of planning was much easier, and for simplicity we can divide the route into 3 sections:
1. AndorrA -> Tarifa (approx. 2.200 km)
In this first section to reach our official starting point, we will cross Spain more or less vertically from Pamplona. On the way, we will pass through the Bardenas Reales de Navarra Natural Park, the Serranía de Cuenca Natural Park, the Sierra de Cazorla Natural Park, the Gorafe Desert and its “badlands”, the Cabo de Gata–Níjar Natural Park, the Sierra Nevada National Park, the Sierra de las Nieves National Park and the Alcornocales Natural Park, before arriving in Tarifa. We will also take the opportunity to take a family break in Torre del Mar, just before finishing the descent towards our starting point.
2. Cap de Tarifa -> Nordkapp (apProx. 9.200 km)
First section of the route itself, during which we will cross Europe from South to North. We will start by following more or less the Ruta de la Plata, with some small variations to include in our list the Doñana National Park, the Llanos de Cáceres and Sierra de Fuentes, the Monfragüe National Park, the Garganta de los Infiernos Nature Reserve and the Sierra de Gredos Regional Park, the city of Salamanca, the Natural Parks of the Luna, Somiedo and Ubiñas valleys and the Picos de Europa National Park, before following the Basque coast to enter France via Hendaye and Saint-Jean-de-Luz. We will cross the Landes department to reach Toulouse, where we will continue through the Haut Languedoc Regional Natural Park.
After a second family break in Maraussan, we will continue north, crossing France through the middle. We will pass by the emblematic Millau Viaduct, loop through the Auvergne Volcanoes Regional Park, before turning towards the northeast and the Ballons d’Alsace Regional Natural Park.
Once in Germany, we will take the opportunity to visit some of the famous castles. We will be a little far from the most famous, but we will still be able to see the castles of Hohenzollern, Liechtenstein, Heidelberg and Eltz (the most impressive of all!…). If after that, we are not yet tired of castles, we can take a detour to see the one in Schwerin before leaving Germany and entering Denmark.
In Denmark, we will expand our list of protected areas with the Vadehavet National Park (Wadden Sea) and continue north, along the coast, to the town of Hirtshals, where we will board a ferry to Norway .
We will arrive in Norway in the town of Kristansand, from where we will continue northwest along the coast to Stavanger. Here, the list of points of interest that we will follow would be too long for a blog, but basically, we will follow the coast, cross a multitude of fjords, take a multitude of ferries, and pass, near and far, by the cities of Bergen, Ålesund and Trondheim (the gateway to the Arctic). Further north, in Bodø, we will take a short detour to visit the Lofoten Islands before returning to the E69 road which will take us to our destination: the North Cape!
3. Nordkapp -> AndorrA (approx. 5.700 km)
The third part of the itinerary is still somewhat approximate, as it will depend on how much we want to extend the return to Andorra. What we are sure of is that we will go down through Finland, closely or distantly following the eastern border of the European Union (or in other words, the border with Russia 😋). We will take another ferry to Helsinki to leave the Scandinavian peninsula and cross the three Baltic republics: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. We will cross Poland and go down to Slovakia (again, staying in the easternmost part) and here the two options will be to cross Slovakia from East to West, or to go a little further down to Hungary and from there cross to Austria. We will cross southern Austria, northern Italy and the French Mediterranean coast to finally arrive in Andorra.
The trip
We are starting this trip with the idea of arriving at the North Cape at the end of June. Therefore, in order not to create false expectations, do not expect to see photos of the Northern Lights because we will be in the Arctic zone in summer, when days last 24 hours and there is no night (and if there is no night, logically, there are no auroras, neither normal nor northern…). Initially we estimate that it might take us about 6 months to do the whole loop but, to put to rest another possible misconception, we are not going on vacation and there will be many days where we will have to work and will not be able to move as quickly as we might like. In fact, the idea is rather to live in Marvin for a few months, and when we have had enough, we will always be in time to return to Andorra…
Giving a meaning…
Traveling for the sake of traveling is great, but we would like to take advantage of this trip to finish developing a project that we have been thinking about for several months. You have probably already noticed that a large part of our route follows all kinds of protected areas that we will find along our way. We’re not avoiding cities simply because Marvin’s size makes accessing urban centres an adventure in itself, but because more than ever, we’re committed to doing our part and trying to contribute to nature conservation efforts, whether at the European level or at a more local level.
During this trip, we would like to share what we see or feel ourselves, but along the way, we will surely also have the opportunity to meet naturalists, professionals or amateurs, protected area managers or nature enthusiasts who work tirelessly to protect our environment and ensure that, across the continent, we can adapt to the effects of climate change. We would like to be able to give a voice to all these people, not so much to talk about what is not working or what is already broken, but above all to show the concrete solutions that are already in place to fight against animals and plants extinctions, secure ecological corridors that will allow those plants and animals to move as the climate becomes more and more inhospitable, and manage the direct and indirect consequences of all this on us, our lives and our economies…
We are still in the maturation stage of all these ideas but, in the medium term, we would like to start sharing them with international institutions, to see what synergies could be found and give additional meaning to our adventures. We will explain all this on this blog and we would also be happy to receive your comments and suggestions on the matter, as we develop the project.
In conclusion
All we need to do is tie up a few final details and we’ll be ready to go! If you have not already done so, do not hesitate to “follow us” to receive a notification each time we publish a new post. Also, don’t hesitate to leave us comments. Throughout the coming months, there will be exceptional days, and surely also days where we will wonder why we embarked on this madness. On days like these, like on the others, your comments will be of great support to encourage us and move forward.
Only a few days left before the first post of this adventure. Thanks again for following us.
S, B & M
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