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History of the project
 My son expressed the first
idea on our way back from the
Grossglockner in the summer of 2008. We have been interested in alpine hiking
for many years and during that time we undertook, together or separately,
a lot of European mountain hikes (see GALLERY). His idea was to
give
our past and future journeys some common theme. But we weren’t able to
find such a characteristic then and we forgot the whole idea.
I
remembered everything half a year later when I scheduled activities for
the year 2009. Then I thought more about the idea and during one weekend
created, with help of my daughter, the project in its present frame.
Now why
have I set up just the present criteria of the project? Why especially the
limitations to the European Union countries? The main reason was this: I was born in
1951, so I wanted to establish a real project that I would be able to
complete.
First I
didn’t want to include non European summits because of geographic
availability. Therefore Europe. Second I needed to limit the total number of peaks. Therefore the European Union
countries and the limit of 2000
m. The second criteria unfortunately excludes a number of very
interesting destinations (Switzerland Alps) from the project. Of course, I'd like to visit as many mountains as possible. Some of them as a part
of The Twelve Summits, the others as certain bonuses.
Beginners' mistakes
After
that hectic weekend of the birth of the project in January 2009 I started
preparing this site. While working on it, several funny
surprises happened. Let me describe some of them for your pleasure.
By
mistake we counted Norway as an EU country. This way we got 12 summits
(symbolic number) higher than 2000 m. From this number we derived the name
and logo of the project including the internet domain name. We realized
the mistake after everything was finished. So we had to improvise and to
transform twelve summits to twelve countries. He who wants to can ascend
Mont Blanc as well as Monte
Bianco from both, France and
Italy.
Further
research showed the highest mountain of mountainous
Spain is situated on the Canary Islands, which actually belong to the
Africa continent. So I will have to travel out of Europe after all and even
though it is not my cup of tea, travel to a famous tourist destination.
And
Sweden’s highest mountain lies beyond the Arctic
Circle. The surprise is pleasant this time, because it brings a long
journey, which itself
can be the destination.
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