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London, United Kingdom

In 55 days by train we visited: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Monte Carlo, Vatican City, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria and Italy.
In 33 days: Morocco in Africa, Greece, Scotland, Ireland and England.

Eighty eight days ago I ignorantly painted Europe with one ‘same same’ brush stroke – castles, churches and all things old. The thing that we have come to love about Europe, and that is hard to find in many other continents, is the ability to jump in an out of countries with different food, language and culture, just with an hours train ride. Europe is very diverse. From east to west and north to south we travelled with our 17kg home on our backs (Im not coming back as a turtle in my next life). Eighty eight days ago I hated travelling this way; as ‘real backpackers’ living everyday unplanned with a new home every night. Like anything, you have to work at it. It took a week or so but with determination and the support of my husband we found a way to enjoy the world’s most expensive continent – on a shoe string budget.

In the beginning we stuck to what we knew, renting a room in people’s houses through Air BnB. We met a lot of great locals this way, particularly beautiful Mouna from Bordeaux. Admitedly we stayed in hotels and riads for a few nights, which gave us our privacy. Overnight train accommodation with the drunks made for long nights but made the most of our precious time. In Southern and Western Europe it was cheaper to stay in hostels. A bit hesitant at first but we soon grew to appreciate their facilities such as a kitchen, washing machine and a good location, with were more valuable than the need for privacy, however I won’t be missing the cold showers and lack of sleep! Family members from across Europe had us to stay. They made us welcome into their homes, provided us with family comforts, revived the batteries and even organised a family reunion. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you: Margaret and Mike in Nuneaton, Anne for feeding us in Norway, Laurence and Francesca in Switzerland, Jenny and Uwe in Greece, Martin and Tricia in Lancashire and Ian and Becky in Milton Keynes – Thank you, you have made a huge difference to our European adventures. And of course thank you to our surrogate mums, Jenny, Margaret and Tricia and surrogate dad Ian for our packed lunches!

We whinged and moaned about Eurail and cursed it every time we paid reservation fees…. But… If we hadn’t we wouldn’t have been able to travel 10,942km in 55 days seeing a staggering 32 cities in 16 countries. With countries so close, it was awfully tempting to do 7 countries in 7 days. We worked out ways to see cities and countries within a few hours but still honoured our golden rule of not becoming click-click bingo tourists and always ensuring we tried the local cuisine. Having a routine, knowing the train connections and preloading offline maps were the most important things in getting to see the city in a few hours, stress free. We always left the accommodation early in the morning before a daily 3-6 hour train ride. Within half an hour of getting off the train, our bags were either in a hostel or in train station lockers and we were in a tourist information or on a walking tour. We repeated this on the go lifestyle everyday for two months before getting to the end and wondering what just happened?

Throughout Europe, we went on 17 Free Walking Tours which provided informative local information and gave an orientation to cities we had limited time in. We rarely used local public transport but walked everywhere as our legs are free and didn’t require working out tickets and timetables in foreign languages. We became confident in meeting likeminded travellers, formed instant relationships in hostels, trains, walking tours and being lost. More often than not we had dinner with people without knowing their name. Most of the time food just consisted of cornflakes for breakfast and bloody jam sandwiches for lunch. I tell you I never want to see a jam sandwich again! But that extra money saved meant the ability to eat the local cuisine with the national beer or wine for dinner. The best investment for this trip was the collapsible bowl, plate and cup. We had breakfast from that everyday. Even when I made a hole in my bowl, I still used it for my cornflakes – just with a slow milky leak on my hands. Locals who took the time to point us in the right direction were our biggest helpers. Just shows english or no english, a smile and the will to help a foreigner can make all the difference.

We will be back to Europe for sure. We have newly met family from both sides and a Mediterranean coastline that has to be explored. There is so much to see, there is so much to eat, there is so much to buy. But next time it’ll be, no jam sams it’ll be overpriced fancy restaurants and it’ll be no cheap flea markets, it’ll be expensive Italian clothing – who am I kidding, you couldn’t take the traveller out of us. Why see one country when you can stretch it to 10?

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