I walked, cause you walked

The other day I read a book by the Norwegian author Thomas Espedal. The title "gå. eller kunsten å leve et vilt og poetisk liv" could be translated "walk. or the art of living a wild and poetic life". It is a book about some of his journeys, but he also explores the art of walking and its influence on writing, like he, Rousseau and many other poets before him have written about.

"I can only meditate when I am walking.  When I stop, 

I cease to think; my mind works only with my legs."

-  Jean Jacques Rousseau, Confessions

Yesterday I did just that - walk. Some friends had planned to walk across Vidden. A trip between Ulriken and Fløyen, two of the seven mountains surrounding Bergen. This is a rather long trip, but we had decided to do it, regardless of the weather forecast that said rain in the evening. We took the cable cars up Ulriken and admired the view for a little while before we started. Light rain (yr) accompanied us for the first part of the trip, but after a while it started raining for real, and we put our not so waterproof jackets on. For the most part the terrain is rather flat, but 5 hours of walking in the rain is a challenge regardless of weather, and when we finally stood at the foot of Fløyen we were wet, tired and relieved to  have reached our goal. If the weather is nice I can recommend this trip. If its raining I would recommend something else, or better clothes than ours...

On a slightly different note: here is a great walking song for you - and you can even download it for free if you want.