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| Piccadilly Circus |
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| Thames |
Thomas Cook, London - there I bought me first interrail ticket for european railroads , one month free riding in trains all over! I had been living in London and thus started my way home... On the whole it took almost three months and two interrail tickets! This was in spring 1974, might have been April... don't remember so well and too lazy to check... Anyway, with the ticket I bought Cook's Continental - all european trains and busses, a timetable. I saw it sometime ago somewhere, a brick red book with pages dog's-eared! Drawings and short notes all over pages...
So that was the start, and I was traveling alone. I had friends all over Europe though, and the world is not dangerous, at least if you keep eyes open and use some common sense. During the whole time there was just one incident: in a train in northern Italy the conductor came to my compartment while I slept and tried to grope - cut it short by kicking his balls. A girl has to be prepared! And I did hitch-hike from Marbella to Torremolinos in the middle of night, past midnight, and a guy took me on - he spoke just spanish so it was a quiet ride. Nice boy, shy... nothing happened. But that was much later, after Morocco...
I went to Dover, and the ferry to Calais had some wind and sunshine. Paris - my friend was meeting me at the station and we had supper with some more friends in a midtown restaurant. Saw Notre Dame in moonlight! Some days there walking the streets and to next friends in Clermont-Ferrand. And again some days there and on I went to Lyon. One of my friends in Clermont was studying in Lyon Polytechnic and he smuggled me for a couple of nights to the dormitory - guys only!! I shared a room with a nice and shy young man, Jean-Luc, and we had supper at Paul Bocuse's restaurant - the boys had a band and they plays there in a wedding. Google Bocuse, if you don't know... There was also excellent cock-au-vin in a small place near the car museum! Gosh I miss the feeling of adventure!
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| Roofs of Clermont |
And the rails go on south to Marseilles, where the hostel was across the city and it was night, but I managed to find the place! Then to San Remo, no, first was Monaco and Montecarlo and the Oseanic museum of Cousteau, yes. It was such an expensive city that after the fishes I just continued to San Remo. I must forget something, but then I was in Munich with other friends - frightened to death by a ride in a red Porche on the Bavarian autobahn by a young man, 150 miles! And Schwabing in the night with some wine and beer.
Bernese Oberland, Interlaken and small village Murren high in the Alps - funny little train going up the slope... And those beautiful days walking the mountains meadows full of crocuses, and Jungfrau there gleaming huge in the evening sun. But it was not idylle I was looking for so back to the coast and over the border to Spain. Night train from rainy Barcelona with the shocking Gaudi monument Sagrada Famiglia to Malaga - it was a wonderful trip: we were a bunch of young people, two german, four canadian, a couple spanish guys and me... somewhere there is a photograph taken on some station pier of us all. Yes, it was wine and song all night long. And in Malaga everything was closed. Patiently we waited some hours for a buss to Torremolinos, me and the canadians, two girls and two guys, and the german boys Wollf and Raf.
Torremolinos - it was a meeting place for young from all over the world. I got stuck there for some weeks. There was a bar Figaro in the Carihuela beach owned by a swedish woman living in Rhonda, and run by three canadian guys. Oh those paellas... They had an apartment rented and they made occasional trips to Marrakesh... I still have my thick moroccan kaftan...
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| Torremolinos means 'the land of windmills' and there on the top of the cliff is the old windmill. |
Then one morning I had a glass in my hand and opened the tap to drink water, and the water came with such force that the glass dropped and went straight through the washbasin... Somehow that made me think of leaving... and in the next evening the boy I had shared the bed with saw me to the buss, that went to Malaga. I took a train to Madrid and from there the Talgo to north. I remember staying in Burgos for a day just walking alone the streets - it was still Franco's regime and militia was everywhere, a bit unnerving if not frightening...
Then I was in Bordeaux and back to Clermont. I saw Jean-Luc standing by his Citroen 2CV on the street and he took me to their house in the mountains. Old farmhouse it was with massive fireplaces and delicious food. Some days there and some in the town, and then to Leiden, Netherlands, to see one of my best friends, who was working there in the local hospital. I stayed with her, went to Katwijk-an-See for a few days, then back and we went to Amsterdam together for the weekend. I do remember visiting the van Gogh museum... and Dam and walking the streets by those canals... and Keukenhof, all those flowers, and there were some kind of greasy things one got from the street kitchens, yummy...
She went back to Leiden and I knew I was bound to go home... but no, I did not want, not yet - so I took the train to Paris... but my friends had left - just an empty house, and the neighbors said they were in Egypt... So I was all alone... I went to one of the stations not knowing what to do, and there was the Orient Express just leaving! On board and there I was on my way again! Through northern Italy - in Trieste some fat ladies came to my compartment talking an unfamiliar language and when we had passed the yugoslavian border - passports, please! - and well our way towards the city of Moshtar, the ladies started to strip: off came several skirts and blouses, maybe a dozen tights... And they just laughed at my surprise! It was smuggling in small scale, yes, quite usual in those days.
Then there was the old man with bread, ham and fresh onions. He invited me to share his breakfast and I still remember how we dipped those onions in salt and how delicious it was. And Neretva was turquoise and the bridge, ancient stone bridge over it in Moshtar was beautiful - the bridge was then blown in the war... On and on all the way to Belgrad, where I felt so fed up I left the train. I was plain dirty and needed a shower. Belgrad is a big city with wide streets and I was so tired... I went to the reception of a big hotel and asked for a shower for an hour or so. Lucky me the receptionist had a great sense of humour! I had an empty room for an hour and had a wonderful warm shower, washed my slimy hair and was ever so grateful!
Zagreb - some students curious about west... A buss to Ploce and from there to Dubrovnik - oh it was raining all the way heavily! In Dubrovnik there was an info just near the buss station, and there the guy said there was not a single bed available in the whole town! I was wet and depression began to lurk in my mind. There was this other guy, his friend I dare say, standing near, and he said, that I could come to stay with him. I must have looked funny because he hurried to explain that he lived with his parents in their house and his sister was studying somewhere else so her room was available! And so I was cared for by these unknown friendly people for a week so well... It was just great!
In the old Dubrovnik (they have used it to film the Game of Thrones city King's Landing) I one day bumped literally to a big man in a street corner and he cried 'well if it is not my little friend Teri!!' He was one of us in Torremolinos, small world, and he was going to Afghanistan and then to Katmandu - it was just so close I did not join him...
But I did not. Back to western capitalism and Venice in the moonlight... and then slowly towards north, home, studies... Must have forgotten a lot but remembered some spicy bits... oh and then there was the Salzburg episode: here
And then one day I was home again...
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| me in those days... |
