It's been 26 years since Kevin and I took off on our first real big adventure together--- a 3-month trip through Europe. Kevin had been a finalist for a traveling fellowship and in dreaming of what he’d do with the prize, we got caught up in planning a trip that we were determined to take whether he won or not (sadly, he did not). I was highly motivated to make this trip happen, as one of my biggest life regrets was not going with my architecture class for their summer European Study tour. Kevin had done that study tour a few years before the one I had skipped AND had lived in Italy and London before I met him, so he knew the ropes. He also knew that there is suffering in travel - if you do it right - and understood how to wrest the most out of it when it was beneficial, and to shut that shit down when it wasn't, mostly, and also understood - or theorized - the importance of a glass of wine periodically throughout the day and some chocolate, nearly any time.
We spent a lot of time organizing this trip; planning the details of the route, researching destinations, and figuring out how to maximize our funds. I even sold my house and my car in order to get enough money to be able to afford three months of travel. We had to temporarily quit our jobs (a sabbatical isn’t really an option for architects) and Kevin’s brother moved into our apartment to help pay the rent. Several weeks before heading off, we got engaged and then quickly married before we went, so the trip ended up being our honeymoon. We guess most couples spend a bit more time planning their wedding than we did (we spent a few hours) and less time on their honeymoon (we had spent 6 months planning this part).
This was NOT a luxury trip, in fact, quite the opposite. We would essentially backpack, taking buses and trains for the first month and getting a Eurail pass for the rest. We’d sleep on many trains, in hostels, and in the cheapest hotels or B&Bs, we could find. We’d closely track our spending each day and often not visit places if the admission price was too much. We ate crackers and cheese or a baguette for a meal, so when we did eat at a restaurant, it was a treat we savored. We walked many miles on most days. This was prior to Fitbit/ step tracking technology, but I think it’s fair to say we walked more than a thousand miles on our trip. The Doc Martens were put to the test.
1994 was before Rick Steves had his tv show, but he had written Europe Through the Backdoor, and we were fans. His philosophy of “traveling low to the ground” resonated with us and we followed a lot of his advice. We even bought his travel bags for this journey. In addition to the ETBD book, we used Let’s Go to Europe as a resource. We cut out the pages we needed and grouped them by section, bringing only the first sections with us and mailing the rest to ourselves in care of PO boxes along the route.
I kept a journal where I recorded the highlights of each day and occasionally did a sketch. It’s really enjoyable to go back and read the entries and see how much of the trip is still fresh and how much of it has faded or totally disappeared from our memories. The energy of the entries at the beginning was palpable, while the entries at the very end show some road weariness from being away from home for so long.
It's interesting to look back at our photos and realize how few photos we took when film was so precious when the camera was large and cumbersome, and how bad most of the photos are when you don't get the easy re-do like with digital photography. I now use the philosophy that I'm bound to get a good shot or two if I take enough photos--and it generally works out. Back then, there were some cities we visited where we didn't even take one photo. We probably took less than 500 photos in total. That is about 5.5 photos per day! Conserving photos was a part of the trip, just like conserving money to make sure it lasted.
We had the basic outline of an itinerary, but there was a lot of flexibility. Rainy days often forced us to slow down and take a breather from the often-frantic pace of travel. We weren’t pinned down by lodging reservations, but sometimes called ahead the day before. We liked traveling off-season (have we mentioned how much we hate crowds?), so we left at the beginning of September and returned at the beginning of December. Besides having a month of grey weather at the beginning (thank you UK), the timing of this trip was right on. We benefited from limited crowds in most places and cheaper lodging prices.
Here's what our itinerary looked like (Sept 5, 1994- Dec 5, 1994)
NETHERLANDS
Day 1- Travel on Royal Jordanian airlines from Chicago to Amsterdam
Day 2- Amsterdam
Day 3- Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum, Anne Frank Huis
Day 4- Haarlem
ENGLAND
Day 5- Night train + ferry to London: Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Camden
Day 6- London: Tower Bridge, play
Day 7- London: St. Paul’s Cathedral, Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace
Day 8- Cambridge England: Trinity College, King’s College Cathedral
Day 9- Bath (drinks with Graeme)
Day 10- York
SCOTLAND
Day 11- Travel to Edinburgh Scotland: (met up with Fiona and Alex)
Day 12- St. Andrews day trip
Day 13- Edinburgh
Day 14- Travel to Isle of Skye Scotland (guide dog and a bull)
Day 15- Isle of Skye
Day 16- Glasgow (Kevin's birthday - no cake)
Day 17- Glasgow: Glasgow School of Art, Tron Theatre play
IRELAND
Day 18- Ferry to Belfast, Northern Ireland
Day 19- Belfast, Northern Ireland (chatty hostess)
Day 20- Dublin
Day 21- Rental car, Wicklow Mts, Kilkenny
Day 22- Dingle Peninsula
Day 23- Dingle Peninsula
Day 24- Doolin
Day 25- Galway: the Burren, Druid Lane Theatre play
Day 26- Galway
Day 27- Aran Islands: Inish Mor
Day 28- Connemara, Mullingar
Day 29- Newgrange, Hill of Tara
Day 30- Dublin: James Joyce Center, Guinness Brewery, Gate Theatre play
Day 31- Train to Rosslare and overnight ferry to France: Eurail Pass
FRANCE
Day 32- Paris (stinky hostel)
Day 33- Paris: Pompidou Center, Notre Dame, Pantheon, Musee d’Orsay, Eiffel Tower
Day 34- Paris: Parc de la Villette, Sacre Coeur,
Day 35- Paris: Cimitiere Du Pere Lachaise,
Day 36- Paris: Louvre, Luxemborg Gardens
Day 37- Versailles, night train
GERMANY
Day 38- Mainze, Frankfort
Day 39- Romantische Strasse, Rothenburg, Dinkelsbuhl, night train
Day 40- Munich: Olympic Village (night train with monkey man at Hoff)
Day 41- Augsburg day trip (Kevin's dad was posted here)
CZECH REPUBLIC
Day 42- Prague (do we dare trust the guy on the train/)
Day 43- Prague: Jewish Cemetery, Castle, lots of bakeries and bars
AUSTRIA
Day 44- Vienna
Day 45- Vienna: Wagner architecture
Day 46- Salzburg
Day 47- Salzburg: Sound of Music sites
ITALY
Day 48- Venice: Vaporetto tour
Day 49- Day trip to find Carlo Scarpa work, Treviso, Vicenza
Day 50- Venice
Day 51- Bologna, night train to Palermo
Day 52- Taormina, Sicily
Day 53- Taormina, Sicily: Castle ruins, Greek Theatre
Day 54- Siracusa, Sicily
Day 55- Siracusa, Sicily: Archaeological Park
Day 56- Naples, Salerno
Day 57- Sorrento, Almafi Coast
Day 58- Day trip to Pompeii
Day 59- Rome: Pantheon, Campiglio, Roman Forum
Day 60- Rome: Trastevere, Colosseum
Day 61- Rome: Vatican Museum, Trevi Fountain
Day 62- Rome: Olympic stadiums
Day 63- Orvieto
Day 64- Day trip to Civita de Bagnoreggio
Day 65- Siena
Day 66- Day trip to San Gimignano
Day 67- Day trip to Arezzo
Day 68- Florence: Duomo, Piazza Michelangelo, Mimi & Massimo’s
Day 69- Florence: Bargello Museum,
Day 70- Florence: Laurentian Library, Santa Maria Novella
Day 71- Olive orchard day with Massimo’s parents
Day 72- Florence: Santa Spirito, Mercato Neovo, Uffizi
Day 73- Pisa, Train to Carcassonne
FRANCE
Day 74- Carcassonne
SPAIN
Day 75- Barcelona: Ramblas street (gypsy alley singing)
Day 76- Barcelona: Picasso Museum, Sagrada Familia,
Day 77- Barcelona: Park Guell, Olympic Park, Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van der Rohe
Day 78- Madrid: Museo del Jamon,
Day 79- Madrid: Sophia Reina Museum,
Day 80- (Happy Thanksgiving!) Granada: Alhambra,
Day 81- Sevilla
Day 82- Cordoba (bought a beret)
Day 83- Cordoba
Day 84- Barcelona, night train to Lyon
FRANCE
Day 85- Dijon
Day 86- Day trip to Beaune (wine o'plenty)
BELGIUM
Day 87- Brugges
Day 88- Brugges/Ghent
NETHERLANDS
Day 89- Amsterdam
Day 90- Amsterdam: Pulp Fiction
Day 91- Amsterdam: Heineken Brewery
Stay tuned as we recount our trip, some 26 years later, country by country and story by story
.
Commentaires