Early days with Manolo. Mobile office in Ituren in the Pyrenees.
(Here is an except from Corporate Woman Magazine 2003 on the first humble origins of my company, ´Pyrenean Experience’ )
Walking in The Pyrenees
“At 34, I left my Danish lover, determined to make a few changes in my life: firstly my sense of direction – I had always intended to move south, not north; secondly, to unite two passions: language and mountains – neither of which being particularly spectacular in Copenhagen!
Having written my first book, ‘Freedom to Choose’, encouraging others to reach for their dreams, it seemed cowardly not to put my theories to the test. So, in 1999, I flew to Madrid with walking boots and pocket dictionary. There I hired a car and headed for the hills. The dream – to run language and walking holidays in the Spanish Pyrenees. The objective – to find the place where it would all begin.
Today, I write this article from my Pyrenean mountain cottage, (Iaulin Borda), the log fire alight and a snow storm outside. I have climbed the steepest slopes of my life, those of the learning curve, and now have a small, successful walking company which has featured in the National Press and on Spanish TV.
The Tabby Cat by the Fire
I had a budget of £5000, was a fair-weather walker, had no experience of the travel industry whatsoever, little knowledge of Spain and even less of the language. The closest I had come to ´language activity’ holidays was on a husky-drawn Eskimo sledge in Greenland where I taught English verbs to an Inuit woman at -20 degrees! …. “
Read the full article on http://www.spanishlanguagewalkingholidays.com/PE10110WhatThePapersSay.asp
