Post cards from Euorpe 1988

 

 

 

                                                         travelled to Belgium by car:
                                                          GENT........ medieval
                                                          ANTWERPEN.....exciting
                                                             BRUGGE......quiet 

  

As I was travelling  vast stretch of Europe landscape from Belgium to Greece in a very short period of time and meeting hardly any one on my journey, staying in crummy hotels and spending most of my time planning my next move and making very little diary notes, I have therefore used just one or two words to describe each city I have visited:

                       From Belgium to  Luxembourg by train ..... LUXEMBOURG..... inviting

                                                              
                                                                    to Germany by train
                                                             TUTTLINGEN ..... peaceful
                                                                MUNICH.....no showers                                                

                                               
                                                  to former Yugoslavia by train to visit:
                                                         LJUBLJANA..... hostile

                                

                                                            to Austria by train visiting:
                                                        SALSBURG.... lots of showers

                                              

                                                   Back to former Yugoslavia by train

                                                          RIJEKA....... unfriendly

                                                              
                                                               to Italy by bus visiting:
                                                               VENICE.... romantic

                                                               FLORANCE……frantic

                                                    PRATO .... can't remember
                                                      BOLOGNA ......... boring
                                                   BRINDISI…….gateway to Greece

                                                                to Greece by boat
                                                               CORFU......noisy

                                                          PATRAS.........dreadful
                                                               PIRAEUS.......hell

 to Crete by boat where my man flew from England to spent two weeks with me to explore little Island of Crete and life for me started to get more interesting :

                                                

IRAKLIO.........a bit better 

  

I found myself making my way from big city Iraklio to little town called Malia,  (my little England)  only a bus ride away. There I found a land lady willing to give me her best room and also cook for me her favourite Greek dishes only because I was not English!! According to her, most of her guests were young English, lager louts and they all behaved pretty badly, so they only got the worse rooms in her over cramped house. During my stay with her, most young English holiday makers slept on the roof top which was always full of bodies arriving in the middle of the night. I was counting my lucky stars for having such a luxury for two weeks before the arrival of my man from England. Malia was small sea side resort and most of the times I walked away from the sea, (good advice from my lady) towards the hills to get away from the English. There were plenty of fish and chips restaurants and according to my land lady the town could not built new hotels fast enough as the demand by the holiday makers was growing all the time.

 

                                                            MAILA.... little England

When my man arrived I moved out of my luxury room and found a hotel to accommodate two of us back in Iraklio. Crete is certainly very popular with the tourists from England. We both bumped into people we personally knew from England. We hired a car so that we could travel up into the mountains and things didn’t go as planned. My partner, who came to join me after the end of cricket season had problem with his back (perks of the great gentle game) and unable to stand upright and we had to find a doctor to give him a magic cure so that he could at least drive the hired car!! Our car broke down on the top of the mountains and we thanked god that the local mountain people were happy to give us a helping hand only because we were English; England saved them from the Nazi during the second world war!!     

                                                           RETHIMNON...... beautiful

At top of the mountains we found our accommodation which was a small self contained white house  for two and the sea below was visible from all corners of the house.It was a magically place for me to be in, especially when my partner produced an engagement ring!!!  I could not believe my luck, at least I will have a roof over my head when I reach England!!

                                                               KHANIA.... paradise
                                               

 We both caught a flight from Crete to England via Athens where we were stranded at the airport for 10 odd hours!! To kill waiting time, we left the airport by taxi to see Athens’s famous landmark: the photo below.....Parthenon at night