E2 is the name of a European hiking trail leading over a distance of 5000 km from Galway in Ireland all the way up to Nice at the French Rivièra coast. The path seeks its way through Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, England, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg, France and Switserland. In Scotland E2 splits up in an east and a west branch. Both branches join again at Zoersel (Belgium) to continue as one single path to Nice.
Together with a number of other ‘E’ trails, E2 constitutes the backbone of an extensive European hiking network with GR trails branching off in all directions. During our hikes we rarely notice signs indicating an E path. It’s not that often we happen to walk on one of them, or that we’re crossing one. And when it happens, usually the markers indicate the name and symbol of the local trail it coincides with.
The famous GR 5 trail coincides with the E2 walkway. Generally speaking GR 5 indicates the E2 section between Bergen-op-Zoom and Nice, almost the complete continental part of E2. The distance indicated at the start in Bergen-op-Zoom is 2172 km.
More info can be found on the websites European Ramblers Association and Wikipedia.
Of the West Variant of E2 we’ve hiked the sections in France (GR 128) and Belgium (GR 5A). They’re listed here under the categories GR 128, GR 5A Zuid, GR 12 and GR 565.
A short liaison path (GR 5A – GR 5 / E2 around Antwerpen, 25 km) was especially designed for the E2 path. It is described in the topoguide GR 5A Zuid (South) and included here.
On the East Variant we’ve completed the itineraries described in the topoguides GR 5 Traject der Lage Landen (Low Lands) and GR 5 Wallonia – Luxemburg. Currently we’re following the section described in the GR 5 Luxembourg – Lorraine topoguide.
All in all we’ve only completed a small part of the GR 5 trail. They’re the parts situated closest to our home base.