Tell us about your first time...

It was 1954. The cops confiscated my pellet gun for popping lizards on a public street. I got it back in a couple of months. They didn't rat me out to mom. End of story.

I have dreamed of going to Europe for probably a dozen years before we had the money saved to go. We connected thru Heathrow right to Rome - yes, our very first trip (I was 35)...in a plane...and we go to Rome - what a culture shock just watching the crazy drivers. We made many dumb mistakes with trains (see my stories on the 'dumbest thing in Europe' thread, and we saw everything way to fast...but fell in love with Europe travel. Venice was my absolute fav and we've been back twice more in the ensuing years. Before we went over, hubby and I thought if we could go every 5 years, it would be awesome. Needless to say, but the time we got home, I was planning our trip back over for 2010. We were switching up our trips - one year to Europe(2008/10/12), one to the US(2009/11/13)...but now am going to mess up the flow as I decided to celebrate hubby's 50th bday and our 25th anni in 2015, we are going to do our dream trip to Australia. So next year we have to keep it on the down low and go back to New York so we can save for said dream trip. I will def be having Europe withdrawal symptoms, knowing we most likely won't go back until 2016. (Come on lotto!)

We always figured money would be an impediment as we do not like to carry a balance at all on our cc's, but where there is a will, there is a way...saving Christmas and birthday money, work bonus, tax refunds, yard sales...but we are lucky now in that we are mortgage free (thanks to my generous in-laws paying our 10 yrs left off - good that hubby is an only child, I guess)...

It's so funny those people who say...why do you have to go see it, just watch a travel show on TV (my mom-in-law included)...well, nothing is like seeing Venice with your own eyes, or the beautiful scenery of Switzerland, or the priceless treasures in the Louvre or Michaelangelo's David. I thought before I'd be addicted, but after the first trip, that was it...I can't get enough! Everytime we go over, it is like the first time all over again (even London and Venice - all 3 trips - always wonderful!)

Hi,

After recieving a few "Alpen Tour" brochures for bike trips in the Alps in the mail , we took our first trip to Europe in Oct. 1989. 11 nights in/around Switzerland. After arriving in Zurich, our first night in Europe was in Triesenberg, Liechtenstein. LOVED it immediatley. It was overcast when we arrived, but it was a spectacular first morning with views of the alps! I'll never forget that first night or the next morning. We had a car the first 3 days until we reached St. Moritz. From there it was the GE and 2 nights Zermatt, 4 nights Wengen and 2 nights Luzern. Our stay in Wengen was the absolute highlight. It was around 8pm when we arrived. We were the ONLY people out this night. It was QUIET! Every step we took seemed loud and we thought the entire village would hear us walking! We visited Bavaria and Austria 2 years later and finally started traveling again in '01. Since '01, we've done 8 trips to Bavaria, Austria and the Dolomiutes. It's a disease!

It was 1985 and I was 16. My school organized a Europe trip (along with just about every other high school in America it seemed): a gaggle of Catholic schoolgirls, two boys (one of whom was my BF at the time), and four adults. It was my first time on a plane; one of the girls got airsick and threw up. We were startled by the heavily armed military men patrolling the Rome airport. I was so excited during the bus ride to our hotel that I took photo after photo of various fountains, thinking they were important. I later found out that they were nothing more than ordinary neighborhood decoration. Boys named Massimo and Gianni chased after – and caught – some of the girls in our group. After our week in Rome, we took a night train to Paris … and were held up at the border for several hours because the Italian train workers went on strike sometime during the night. I was ecstatic that Parisians understood my schoolgirl French! I was delighted by La Maison du Whopper. ;) Then to London via hydrofoil. We stayed in dorms in Kentish Town and saw plays in Stratford-upon-Avon and the West End. Some of our group went home after London, but some of us, including me, went on to spend a few days in Dublin (ferry from Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire). I’m afraid the only thing I really remember from Dublin is the phone call from my mother telling me that my grandmother had died.

Certain songs will send me right back to the heart (and heat!) of Rome: Shout; Everybody Wants to Rule the World; Get Into the Groove. Other songs, like Phil Collins’s Take Me Home, send me back to Ireland. When I look back at that trip, I marvel at how relaxed I was about everything. I wasn’t worried about how to dress: I wore mid-80s short shorts and tennis shoes! I didn’t worry about seeing this, that, and the other thing. We would see something in the morning and then have the entire afternoon free to wander around the city or just laze about. I (we) stressed about virtually nothing. There is, indeed, a certain bliss that comes with ignorance, though I think naiveté is a better word in this case. For a less-than-worldly 16-year-old, it was the most incredibly liberating experience. I was bitten hard by the European travel bug in 1985, and 28 years later that bite still itches!

21 years old. Instead of going to Cancun or South Padre Island for spring break, I saved to visit a friend who was studying in London. I'd been a deprived Anglophile and Europhile for years. For that trip, it was like someone who is genetically predisposed to alcoholism having their first drink. I was hooked instantly, I cursed myself for not looking into a study-abroad program, I visited just about at least once every year thereafter, and in 2010, I moved here permanently.

Randy,

It was my first job out of college and my first time traveling on a plane. Took 2 full size luggage and had to bring back that plus 4 boxes of equipment. Learned alot of flying and packing. The flight was a 14 hour from SFO to LHR. Didnt know back then to get an isle seat so i could sit/stand when i wanted - i know now.

had to go from LHR to Southampton driving for the first time on the "right side of the road as my UK boss use to say". The airlines lost our luggage and it took them 2 days the find it the day before us leaving. Luckly we bought some clothes to use in between. Not bad, but was going to have to drive to Calais a few days later, but had the local engineer do it. He wasnt happy either. But we made it. Spent 3 days in Calais and had some fun,but worked more than a tourist.

I had to bring my luggage and the 4 boxes of equipment on board the train from Calais to Paris duing their spring break. I found out what their "class 3?" Standing Room Only (SRO) was too.

Happy trails.

I was 50 before I got to go the first time. Ever since I was very young I wanted to go to England - why did I never think it was something I could do? My husband went over there on business and suggested I join him. As I said, that was when I was 50, and we have gone to Europe every year since then. Every trip has been just fantastic but there was something very magical about seeing England for the very first time after having wanted to for so long. Now we've been to quite a few places in Europe, but England continues to be my favorite.

It was 1977, and I asked for an airline ticket to Europe for my high school graduation present (rather than the old hand-me-down Toyota.) Although we'd never met, my Japanese cousin (on my mother's side) who married a Swiss man and lived in Basel, Switzerland, agreed to let me stay with them. In the weeks before my trip, my sweet, selfless mother wistfully admitted that she had always wanted to see Europe too. By the time my dad came home from work that day, we had worked out a plan for her to join me (It involved a lot of frozen meals for the rest of my family:)

After two weeks in beautiful Switzerland, she joined me for a few days and then off we went with our unlimited Eurailpasses. Being 17, I have to admit that I didn't do a lot of research, so we'd look at the map, decide where we wanted to go, somehow find the correct train, and then found decent hotels once we got there. We went to Paris, spent a night in Monaco (unintentionally, when we discovered it was the train's last stop), stayed several days in gorgeous Florence (where we met some friendly young teachers from Florida who showed us where to stay and eat) then a quick stop in Munich before returning to Switzerland. We had a gloriously relaxed time, just the two of us bumbling around and enjoying beautiful Europe. Unlike my dad, Mom was laid-back and was game to try anything....a great traveling companion. Yes, we made mistakes, got lost a few times, didn't make efficient use of the trains, etc. but nothing serious. Being a "military brat" at the time, the unstructured traveling was such a welcome departure from our normal lifestyle. She and my dad were able to travel extensively after he retired, before my beloved mom passed away in Dec. 2011. She meant the world to our family. I'm finally returning to Italy next spring on the RS VFR tour, and I know she'll be right there with me.

1977 was the year I got bit by the life-long travel bug too... I left Canada for a youth exchange program in the Philippines. At the end of the program, I gave up my return ticket home and overstayed my 6-month visa by another 2 months. Those were the days when the young and foolish could still get away with that, with a smile and an apology on the way out. I continued on to other parts of South-east Asia and Australia. Europe still did not yet appeal.

Finally, on my way to West Africa in 1989, I asked hubby to join me in Paris for 10 days while I got a free stop-over with AF. It took a lot of doing to convince him that first time: how we really only would have the extra expense of his plane ticket, since I had already bought mine. We stayed in two youth hostels, one in Paris and one in Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, in Haute-Provence (this choice having been suggested by a helpful IYH staffer in Montreal). I finally had to give him a hand-drawn "voucher" for a rental car in France as a birthday present. He had to buy his plane ticket then, if he wanted to claim his "gift"! ;-)

We loved it! I never had to "convince" him again after that trip. I've managed a trip to Europe once or twice a year since, DH almost yearly. I've gotten better and better over the years with maxing out the stop-overs. The best was in 2012, when I got to spend 2 weeks in Russia on my way to my brother's wedding in France (the wedding being the "stop-over"). The fare to Saint Petersburg, open-jaw Moscow, was much cheaper than the return to Paris... the best excuse ever to knock that one from the bucket list!

1957: I was seven, in Rome with my parents in a hotel on Piazza Della Repubblica (Piazza Esedra). Early one morning I woke up to see a shepherd moving his flock through the Piazza. No one believed me.

My high school German teacher took a group of us to Germany the summer between my Junior and Senior year of high school. There were 5 of us girls, our teacher, and 2 chaparones. (My dad being one of them) It was the most amazing trip ever. It is so hard to put into words how wonderful it was. It was great to spend time with my dad and share that experience. We visited a little bit of Austria and a little bit of Switzerland as well.

We called my German teacher Herr. And when we were flying out of O'hare, one of the chaparones was running through the airport call "Oh Herr, Oh Herr" trying to get his attention. We got so many funny looks. It also got us some funny looks out side the church on Sunday when we went for Mass. (Herr is also the German word for Lord)

We met up with two boys in a disco and one still writes to one of my friends 20 years later. Songs like What is Love by Haddaway make me think of that time.

There was also the wild boar story which I will never forget. So we were in the Blackforest and trying to find the beginning of the Danube river. It was a little bit of a hike and it was getting into the evening time. On the ride up to the trail head, my dad and Herr warned us to keep a sharp eye out for wild boar and they wanted us to be safe. We were like whatever. So we are hiking and my dad was booking it. I just assumed that he wanted to make it there before it got too late. We rounded a corner and my dad was gone. Thinking nothing of it, I continued to talk to one of my friends and our teacher. All of the sudden in the bush this awful noise started and bushes started to shake. All I knew was the rest of the girls were running at us in terror. In the midst I was like why does that noise sound familiar. Then my dad stepped out of the bushes laughing. (We lived in a woods growing up, and he would do this to me and my sister all the time growing up.) I can't look at a sign that has a wild boar to this day without laughing and remember the look of terror on my friends faces.

I had the opportunity to do a summer program as well during college and the stories from there made me wonder how I made it to adulthood.

Then last summer, my husband got to go for the first time. His family had a family reunion there. So we got to meet 70 German cousins we never knew we had. It was amazing. It was also really cool to see his reaction to Germany, France and Austria and experience it through his point of view. We are planning our next trip for next year and cant wait to visit some of the family memebers we met.

Cool topic!!

My mom was watching the Travel Channel in 2006 and saw a Samantha Brown show where she was in the Cotswolds. She just fell in love with the villages she saw. I had always wanted to go to London being a big Anglophile.

So, with some money my grandparents had left me we booked a trip for May 2007. Four nights in the Cotswolds and five in London. I did all the research and booking myself. We took my 2 boys and my dad tagged along. We used only public transportation because I was afraid to drive on the opposite side of the car/road. We spent the four nights in Cheltenham at a B&B. Then moved to a hotel near Victoria Station in London.

I just remember being so excited to finally be going somewhere I deemed exotic! It was truly magical for us. I have since returned once to London and we have gone twice to France. We are planning our third trip to France for Summer 2014. Three weeks including Dordogne, Brittany, Normandy and Paris. I already have a 2016 trip plan forming in my mind too!

In the 60s my mom had an English pen pal and I ended up writing to her neighbor's daughter when we were 8 and 9. In 1975/76 she came and lived with our family for 4 1/2 months while doing a placement with the local social services agency as part of her social work degree. I returned the visit in 1977, spending a month with her in a flat in Bath and a month with her family in East Anglia. Seeing how different things could be even in a country where we spoke the same language (basically) :-) really changed my point of view and has influenced a number of choices I've made in my life. (Smaller housing for instance.)

I went with no plan or research and had a great time. She had gathered some information from the bus/coach station and I went down there a couple times a week and went on whatever tour sounded interesting. One included a river trip to Oxford. Didn't see much of the city since it took so long to get through all the locks, but I was enchanted by the wild swans on the river. Our last trip we visited Abbotsbury so I could see the swans there and feed them.

I also vividly remember attending services at Bath Abbey--very different from church at home--followed by a long walk in the country to a teahouse by a river. Clotted cream was on the menu, which sounded awful to me--like the milk had gone off--but I gave it a try and spent the rest of the trip having a cream tea whenever I could.

We've exchanged visits several times since then, but we both remember our first times (hers to the US, mine to England) with special fondness.

Well my second time is a much better story, but here goes.

My first trip to Europe was to England in 2000. I started dreaming about it in about 1996, and when Princess Diana died in 1997 I became obsessed with it. We saved up and went at the first financial opportunity, which was December 2000. We were gone 18 days and stayed in Liverpool, the Cotswolds, and London. It was everything I hoped it would be and more.

I told DH we had to go back soon, but circumstances made it four years before it happened. Luckily we are now in a position that we can go on a "big" trip once per year, and add a few "small" ones every now and again.

1965 and like so many young nurses where I came from it was THE thing to do! 6 months of wandering around Europe with one of those awful heavy backpacks and of course "the bible"..... Europe on $5.00 a Day, which must have weighed 10 pounds! Then you really could do it on $5.00 a day! It never once crossed our mind that other than a wee bit of French and a smattering of German that there might be a language problem.... and there wasn't! We were ER nurses , dealt with all types of people and were confident we would manage! Hostels, some with straw mattresses!, private rooms that we found through the tourist information centres on arrival, and of course those " foot prints" in the snow toilets, some in a shed outdoors. Hitch hiking, taking 3rd class trains ( with farm animals!) and sometimes buses. No contact with home except for the odd letter we picked up or sent from the American Express Office in the major cities. The American Express Office was a place to connect with other young travellers, mainly, in those days it seemed, from USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. We also cashed our American Express cheques and found out about good places to stay where we were headed next. No lines for getting into the major attractions, no pre-booking and no hoards of tourist led by someone carrying an umbrella! Our hitch hiking came to an end when we were headed to Mainz. Started out great but soon went bad when we ended up in what seemed the middle of nowhere and the weather also turned bad, cloudy, drizzly, cool and no one would give us a ride! Somehow after many hours and cursing every car that went by us we were able to get to a train and on to Mainz. Arrived well after dark (we were fearless in those days!) but managed to get a room. we left first thing in the morning to take a boat on the Rhine to Cologne so we really never saw anything of Mainz. In Oct. of this year I finally saw Mainz and fell in love! It took me many years ( UNTIL 2000 )to get back but now go every 2 years. The best thing....... all my family, 3 children and spouses, 5 grandchildren have been to Europe.... some several times.... and this year some of us met up in Rothenburg......after my second daughter got engaged in Paris! Next trip? I think based in Mainz. Favorite country.... Slovenia, Favorite city.... Budapest!

Spring break junior year in high school my Spanish class went to Spain. Don't remember much
but I do recall drinking champagne on a beach in Costa del Sol. We went on a booze cruise I smoked cigarettes
In the plane (back in the day) without the teachers finding out. I totally wasn't impressed with Spain and totally
didn't appreciate the trip. Returned to London 10 years later - didn't love London then 9 years later I went to Amsterdam
with a friend and after that (the last 9 years) my family and I have returned to Europe at least once a year.

I was 31 years old. I had been single for almost 2 years and was not thrilled with my academic job at a university--the most political work environment of my entire career. It was a good time to take a break and do something I had wanted to do my whole life--go to Europe.

I wanted to go for as long as possible, so I quit my job and sold almost all my stuff to generate the money to go. I literally was left with a VW Rabbit, a bicycle and 10 boxes that I stored with friends until I returned.

I flew for $100 on the inaugural Laker Airways Skytrain flight from JFK to Gatwick on 26 September 1977. My guidebook was Lets Go Europe. I had done some research (librarian, you know) and had some "must sees" in mind, but I was very flexible. I did love Italy and spent 5 weeks there, 3 in Florence alone.

I did not go to Ireland, Portugal, Paris, Madrid or anywhere in Germany, Austria or Switzerland. I knew I'd go back sometime. Because of the time of year, I started in the north and worked my way south. How was this Texan to know that it could snow in Athens around the New Year? I was there a long time in those pre-Schengen days. It took just about 4 months for my money to get low enough for me to decide to head home.

I primarily stayed in hostels and pensions and B&B's. I met others along the way and traveled with them for part of the time. Most were younger than me. Some were from the US or Canada, but most were not. I met a Danish woman in England who let me stay a few days in her parents' apartment in Copenhagen while they were away. I met an English woman in Spain who invited me to stay with her at the end of my trip on the way home.

I didn't have a camera to take and I didn't buy one. I wanted to experience what I was seeing and not concentrate on taking pictures. I called home twice I think, from the post office phone options available back then. I sent lots of post cards.

I packed very light, but still left my little duffle and some extra clothes with someone I met in Amsterdam. I bought a ski touring backpack and used that with a cross body messenger type bag the rest of the trip.

I got sick 4 times in the 4 months, primarily colds and one time at the end, flu. I was very glad to have that nice place to stay in London although I never figured out how to get the water hot for a shower and stayed in the living room with the gas fire on and watched the Muppets for 2 days while I finally got well enough to go home.

A few highlights of the trip that did not involve typical sightseeing:

• Eating Nutella for the first time at a hostel in the Netherlands.
• Meeting a woman from Australia there who said she only did one major thing a day, a lesson I have tried to put into practice on my trips ever since.
• Meeting an old German guy in a train station who raved about his treatment as a POW in Texas during WWII. He thought he had gone to heaven.
• Using my poor Spanish to talk to the old guy who helped a group of us find a place to stay in Barcelona and giving him a tip. He later came to the B&B where we were and took us all out for dinner. He had used my tip to play the lottery and won lots of money.
• Attending midnight mass at the Vatican and walking home in the middle of the night (no other transportation available) with a woman who was studying architecture in Rome and luckily lived close to where I was staying.
• Taking the Magic Bus from Athens back to Amsterdam. Hmmm? Maybe that was more of a unique experience than a highlight...

I expected to be wowed by the art and architecture and by the different modes of transportation. I did not expect the consistently wonderful human contact.

Thoroughly enjoying everyone's stories....great idea, Randy!

I am enjoying all the great stories here (and feeling regretful that I didn't make that first trip when I was in college - or that I am not old enough to have been in Europe during the 60's and 70's when $5 really could get you through a day) and I hope to read many more.

I am particularly interested in the contrast (if there is any) between how you experienced Europe that first time and how you experience it now. For those who saw Europe first as a young person on the cheap, the differences might seem to center on the speed and comfort level of travel. But I'm also interested in how you may (or may not) see things differently through your eyes, intellect and imagination now vs, then...

My first trip was in 1982; I was 28. I heard about a charter flight to London with 1 or 2 weeks hotel at an incredible price. I can hardly remember a time I did not dream of traveling to Europe, so I was dying to go. My husband had no interest and refused to even consider going someplace where the people didn't speak English. It wasn't too hard to get him to go for one week, but it took a long time to get him to agree to two.

The hotel we stayed in could not have been more charmless. But we didn't care! The location was good and we were in London! (My husband loved it almost as much as me.) we got a Brit rail pass for the first week, so we took day trips every day. We spent the second week seeing the sights in London. It was a dream come true.

Six months after we got back, we found out I was pregnant. I said to my husband - let's go to Scotland before the baby comes because it will be a long time before we can go again. We were right. It was 15 years before we were able to take our kids. Now that the kids have flown the coop, we are in our prime travel years, and we try to go every year. My husband got over his obsession with English a long time ago, and he is willing to go anywhere. I am very grateful to be able to take the trips I dreamed about as a child.

My first trip to Europe was in 1999, my senior year of high school. My art history teacher took a group of students somewhere every year over spring break and that year she was going to Italy. I had wanted to go to Italy for years because even in junior high, I loved "old stuff." We flew from St. Lous to Atlanta to Zurich to Milan and immediately got on a bus to Verona. Everyone was asleep but me. I loved watching all the funny little cars on the highway (even now, I enjoy looking at the cars in Europe because they're so different from cars in the States). In Verona we saw the Roman amphitheater and I was hooked. Imagine growing up in a city with a 2,000-year-old building in the middle of it! The highlights of any trip for me are medieval buildings and art.

As I've gotten older, I've found that the European mindset jives with my own in terms of social programs and a general community-mindedness that we seem to lack in the U.S., such as publicly funded education, government health care, months-long paid maternity (and in some countries paternity) leave, etc.

I was getting restless in the spring of 1968, during my sophomore year in college, when I signed up for a work exchange program in the little town of Attendorn, Germany, an hour’s train ride east of Cologne. But I had to find a way to get there. We were a working-class family, so I had no right to even dream of such a thing, but my parents somehow came up with the money for a ticket on an Icelandic DC-3 to Luxembourg and funds for my first week in Germany. After that, I was on my own.

There was nothing spectacular about Attendorn, other than the fog rising off the mountains that hemmed in the town and the large lake on its edge. And the people, who were welcoming to this bewildered Southerner, who was struggling just to speak the language.

Over eight weeks that summer, I saved every mark I could, and then spent five weeks taking trains and hitchhiking, which was common back at that time, staying in hostels and trying to live on $5 a day, even if it meant missing a few meals. First, it was back to Cologne, then to Amsterdam, the Continent’s equal to San Francisco.

After meeting some kids who had returned from Prague, I decided to go there, next. But the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia, sealing off the border, so I changed my destination to Vienna by way of Munich and Salzburg, with a couple of stops along the way. The things that stand out for me today were not the places, many of which still bore scars from WWII, but the people, both the citizens, who would go out of their way to be kind to foreigners, and fellow travelers, mostly college students from England and different parts of the U.S. Friendships were instantly made and just as quickly abandoned as we moved from town to town.

I see that I am rambling, so I will close this with the thought that my life has never been the same since that trip. My sheltered life was no more. In fact, a year and a half later I was in the Army and back in Germany. As for changes, I will have to give that one some thought.

First time was 1969, high school spring break trip to Paris. We girls wore skirted suits and dresses on the airplane and throughout the trip and the boys wore ties. View from my hotel window was of the Opera. Loved the Jeu de Paume. Croissants and pastries were heavenly. Went to an Algerian restaurant and had couscous which was unknown to most of America at the time. Day trip to Versailles, oh, the crowds, even then. Took my first train trip to Rouen, loved the train. The trip, air and hotel and a few meals, cost $350 and I had $50 in spending money. Loved every minute of it.

Fast forward to 2005, fourth trip to Europe, second to Paris. My college roommate had just moved to Paris with her job. I was her first and most frequent visitor for the three years she was there. I took two suitcases, one mostly of guidebooks (my friend mailed most of them back to me). I'd read and read and researched Paris or so I thought. One evening she said she had something to show me. We're hanging out on a bridge and I have no idea what is going on. The Eiffel Tower starts its hourly sparkle and I gasped! In all my reading (didn't know about the Helpline then), I didn't know the ET sparkled and I thought it was magnificent. Still love Impressionist painting which is now in the Orsay, still love the croissants and pastries, still love taking trains, still don't like the crowds. Can't afford the hotel with the view of the Opera but no matter. Still love Paris.

2006: Third trip to Paris, with only my RS 21" bag. I discovered the freedom and wisdom of packing light. Added Provence to Paris. Always something new to discover. Have done almost annual trips to Europe since then, and my list of places to see just keeps getting longer.

I have seen a lot of changes since the late ‘60s and early ‘70s in Europe, just like in the U.S. That’s to be expected. But the changes in Europe stood out more for me because of a 34-year gap between visits.
When I first arrived, much of Western Europe had been rebuilt since World War II, and there was a lot of new construction in the cities in those years. But a lot of damaged buildings were closed up, waiting their turn for restoration. Frankfurt’s old opera house was just an empty shell at that time; from the pictures, it looks fantastic today, but I have yet to make it back there. Munich’s Marienplatz was dug up for a new subway system in 1968, and it was dug up again this summer for work on the system.

One thing that amazes me is the way cities and towns, even castles, have become more colorful over the years. Back then, most buildings were unpainted stone or concrete; now there are vibrant colors everywhere. They look better now, and the colors may be true to their original appearance, but the grey look always struck me as more authentic.

Just as at home, the roads are more crowded, and there seem to be far more tourists than in the past. One thing that stood out for me on my first visit to Germany was that the town was rather isolated and I was the first American many of the residents had ever seen. I have not been back there but I am sure that is not the case today.

Oktoberfest was not a big deal for Americans back then, so my friends and I never went, even though I was in Frankfurt for at least two of the festivals. Same for Cologne’s Carnival. There was enough to do and drink in Frankfurt that it never occurred to us to drive that far just to party. But, there being few American fast food chains in the area back then, we did ride down to Mannheim to an A&W stand for root beer a few times. Now, McDonald’s and Burger Kings are all over the place.

I haven’t noticed much change among the locals in any country I have visited. The ones I have encountered are like the folks at home: a lot of friendly, caring people with a few cranks and malcontents mixed in. That is a little surprising, considering the way tourists, myself included, seem to have crowded out the locals in a lot of places. Overall, the people still seem nice.

As for changes in my thinking, politics and worldview, they were pretty much set in stone back in ’68. That first trip helped solidify moderately liberal attitudes, politics and a worldview that was already forming back then. I am older now, of course, and know more about more things, but I am probably no wiser. On the other hand, I am just wise enough to know that most of the know-it-alls of this world don’t have a clue.

It was 1973 and 30 or so of us were headed to Eningen u.A. to study MTW and half of TH. We had 10 days in the middle of winter term, three weeks between terms and 10 days in the spring in which to go anywhere. And of course, we had the long weekends for other travel. We were taking courses, but were encouraged to travel as much as we could. We hitched, we traveled by bus and by train and ferry. It was glorious. I feel extraordinarily lucky to have had that six months--was it really only six months?

Highlights included:

• Week end ski trip to Austria--first time skiing!
• Ten day trip to Berlin and East Germany. We explored East Berlin on our and with a minder. On a recent trip to Gedankness Kirche I saw lots of ghosts of our 19-year-old selves.
  
• A week end trip to Strasbourg. I really encounters the Algerian students. It was quite an adventure. And then there was the room that Marie Antoinette slept in on her way from Austria to Paris.
  
• The 46 hour train ride to Athens from Stuttgart. The Greek guest workers who shared my compartment; fed me; and wanted to know if I knew Jackie Kennedy Onassis.
  
• The arrival in Athens to find no friends waiting for me; The concierge who called his daughter and who spoke English, and said, "Don't worry Luv, it will be fine!"
  
• The Acropolis by night
• The travels on my own in Greece and the empowerment that I got from them.
• The astounding moment when I met up with my friends in Patras--Corfu, Rome, Florence and Venice!
• Traveling in France solo--the result of the confidence gained in Greece.
• Deserted on the week end trip to Vienna, but still seeing Madam Butterfly
• Night train to Amsterdam and the pickle jar rolling around on the floor; the Cologne Cathedral cover in scaffolding.
• All the museums and art and ruins
• Sitting at the Reutlingen RR station at 6AM to catch train,to catch a plain for London, and telling a bum exactly where to take himself in fluent German.
• Coming home to Chicago; sitting in the Seven Seas Restaurant and my dad ordering a beer for me to drink because it was illegal. the waitress was peeved.
  
• The reunion 25 years later and the Ouzo and the Beer and love and friendship

Thank you Lawrence University for the opportunity. The Eningen Program no longer exists, but its sister program, The London Program, lives on and my heart is always warmed by the though of other Lawrence students learning and growing.

Pam

My first time.... I was 19, on a study abroad semester in Salzburg, Austria (spring 1976). Salzburg College is a joint venture run by Illinois State University (my school) and Northern Illinois University. No one in my family had been out of the US except for brief trips into Mexico and Canada, so it was a big adventure for them, too, via very slow snail mail. No computer, no cellphone, just aerogrammes (anyone remember those tissue-paper contraptions?) that took a week to arrive. Every so often my school would send a big envelope of campus newspapers so that we could catch up on news, and if we needed to call home we had to do so at the post office. We spent spring break week in Vienna and Budapest, where many in the group lamented being "stuck" while their friends at home were in Florida. During that semester we went to the Olympics in Innsbruck, visited Germany, East Germany (never budging more than a few steps from our guide the whole time we were in East Berlin), Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. After the semester ended, I took a "boat-train" from Salzburg to London, via Belgium, where we boarded a ferry to Dover, then another train to finish our journey. That was the beginning of a continuing love of travel, though I didn't get back to Europe again until 2001. I have been making up for lost time ever since.

Nancy, interesting to read your post. It was so close in time to mine! You might like to know about our solo adventure to East Berlin! You could go on your own, but you had to be out by 11 PM; you traveled by SBahn through Friedrichstrasse; you had to exchange at least 5 Oestmarks (am I spelling that right); and you hadn't better not get caught doing any illegal exchanges despite the fact that the illegal exchanges were incredibly more lucrative. There were lots of rumors about what you could get for your blue jeans! We went over for an evening. We mostly just walked around. It was winter; It was dark; and there wasn't much to see. We did see the Alexander Platz and went up the elevator to the bar where we spent our money on one drink. On the way up in the elevator were some Russians. They looked like businessmen. We made it to Friedrichstrasse in time, but with not a lot of time to spare. The East German guards tried to give each of us a scare by taking a very long time with each passport and eyeing us suspiciously. We made it back to the Hostel in the West.

A few days later we went as part of our official tour with the minder. We went to the Pergamon, saw huge piles of rubble from the war, and were forced to spend at least an hour at the German History Museum, which at that time had no English translations and was almost entirely about Marx and the Communist experience in Germany.

Our journey back to the South was through Leipsig, we spent the night in hostel there having visited the "Bach" church, St. Thomas, if I remember correctly. The next day was Buchenwald and Wartburg and then home. It was quite a trip and an amazing experience.

Pam

My first time was when I moved to Germany in Jan 2011 at the age of 31. I'd always had a sort of general interest to go, sure, but not particularly to Germany, and there were (still are!) other parts of the world that I was more interested in traveling in, like Central America and Asia. To that point, all of my international travel as an adult had been to Mexico.

Given that we moved in the dead of winter, and had a lot on our plate in terms of my husband adjusting to the new job, living out of a hotel, dealing with army culture (new to both of us), finding a place to live, it wasn't exactly wildly romantic, although the newness of everything made it very exciting. Our first "day trip" was to Esslingen and then Heidelberg shortly after that, and within a few months we'd ventured to Strasbourg overnight, and then spent a few days in Marsielle and Cassis. Haven't looked back since. Only have a little over two years left (unless we manage to get transferred to Spain, Italy, or the UK after) so I need to start making some big travel plans while I can!

Pam, the first 10 days we were in Europe, we did a field trip in Germany before heading to Salzburg. I remember having to exchange a certain amount of money for E German marks to enter E Berlin - and you had to spend it because you couldn't bring it back with you. Everyone stared at our shoes and parkas. Our group sat for a long time in a cafe at a museum waiting to be served (and not being able to complain about it). I remember being surprised at the bullet marks and bombed out buildings still there from the war. We went to the Pergamon, too.

Nancy, interesting to hear about the tourist experience behind the Iron Curtain. Did the various Communist countries "feel" any different? From what I've read the Czechoslovakian regime was generally more oppressive than Hungary for instance. Don't know if a tourist could pick up on that on a brief visit though.

Yes, it did feel different. Czechoslovakia, particularly, though we felt more free to go around on our own, was very unmodern for the time (we were mostly in Prague). The styles of clothing were 60's-ish, some of the shops seemed empty. We were only permitted to stay in certain hotels. We joked (and didn't know whether it was true) that the rooms were bugged. In 1976, the "Prague Spring" had only been a very few years earlier. We didn't feel that at all in Budapest.

East Berlin, though, was my first exposure, and I was, frankly, quite scared. They hassled one of our group going in because she had had a mole removed from her face and cut her hair after her passport photo. Until that trip, I had always thought that the Wall was something from WWII. I had no idea that it was actually so "new" then. When you left Berlin you were not permitted to stop on the road until you reached West Germany again, but our bus broke down on the way. We were almost immediately surrounded by soldiers with rifles, which was pretty terrifying for a kid from the Illinois cornfields. Temporary repairs were made, and we were escorted the rest of the way to the border.

My uncle went into East Berlin in the 70's- he was quite a worldly person by then, but he said he felt nervous and on edge the whole time he was there. He also said the food was terrible (I've read that other places); he had a sausage that was probably cut with sawdust.

Also interesting that American soldiers were allowed to move in and out of East Berlin, and the East German guards were not allowed to detain them or even check their documents.

Since this discussion has taken a "behind the wall" turn, I'll add my experience on a trip from Frankfurt to Moscow and Leningrad (St. Petersburg) in the mid-80's. I was living in Nuernberg and working for the US Army. My boyfriend, a US soldier, and I were required to sign up and get all the necessary paperwork for the West German-organized trip through the Army. About 25% of us on the trip were from US military communities in West Germany.

We were put in special hotels in both cities. We also joked about being bugged and about being followed because others who had gone before us had experienced that. I don't know about the bugging, but when we were on our own in Moscow, we most definitely were followed. I have a picture of my boyfriend in the area of the Kremlin with a guy behind us checking on someone's papers. We figured our "minder" cooled it when I stopped to take the picture and hassled some poor Russian instead.

We went prepared with the appropriate goods to barter--American cigarettes for the men, make-up for the women and old jeans for both. It was the standard practice back then and we did do that. We tipped our hotel waiter with packages of cigarettes and showed him a postcard with the USSR flag flying over the Kremlin. We knew we would not be allowed to buy one ourselves, so we asked him to get a flag for us. He made a joke asking if we wanted that one, i.e. one that had flown over the Kremlin. The next meal, we had our flag.

Our hotel in Leningrad was much nicer than the one in Moscow, as was the food and general atmosphere. I don't remember a lot about it. But the one in Moscow was pretty bad. The bath water was brown, we assumed from rusty pipes. It was a business man's hotel with lots of Japanese businessmen in the bar. They obviously were being entertained by beautiful Russian women.

A young American from our group decided he would convince one of those women that our way of life was better than hers. He got in a cab with her in hopes of an exciting evening of some sort. He got rolled. All his money was taken. The rest of us chipped in to help him the rest of the trip. He was a slow learner and had his camera taken and the film extracted by some officials when he was taking pictures of people swarming over an open air sale of used jeans behind some building in Leningrad.

We did have a surprising amount of free walk around time, and we were able to go to a propaganda bookstore. I bought a pro-USSR poster which said "the indivisible Soviet Union." We also shopped in a military supply store. My boyfriend, a blond, blue-eyed East German soldier look-alike, got one of the typical tall fur hats, and some star belt buckles. The sales clerk made eye contact with me when I tried on the hat and subtlely shook his head to warn me to take it off.

We hid the flag, the hat and the belt buckles in our luggage when packing for home, hoping they wouldn't be found. We were lucky that our luggage wasn't even opened because the West German tour leader herded us through like a good border collie. I was almost detained because my passport picture was so bad. I had to point out that scar on the chin in the picture matched the one on my face.

Having passed that hurdle, we all got on the plane and flew back to Frankfurt, but the excitement wasn't over yet. The plane was stopped out on the tarmac and surrounded by guys with guns. We were taken off out there and taken to the terminal in buses. Of course, we hadn't seen or heard anything about it when we were in the USSR, but in the terminal we learned about the KAL plane being shot down by the Soviets. We were on Aeroflot and were told that the precautions taken upon our arrival were for our safety.

Interesting to hear the passport stories! When we were doing the crossing back to West Berlin, part of the hassle was that staring at your face and then back to the passport picture implying that it wasn't you. In my passport picture I wasn't wearing glasses, when I made the crossing I was. It wasn't until I took my glasses off that the guard waved me through. And bear in mind that these guards were our age or 2-3 years older. The other thing I remember was stopping for the passport check before the bus could get into West Berlin. We had all be told that there was to be no joking; that it was a serious matter. It was winter and the guards had on these long grey woolen coats that flared out. I thought that they looked just like the Winkie uniforms in the Wizard of Oz. I had to stop myself looking for a tail as that was making me laugh and that was a bad idea.

I took the train from Stuttgart to Athens and that required a durch or "Through" Visa as we went right through then Yugoslavia on the Hellas Express. Sadly, this train no longer exists. I woke up the first morning to cornfields and power lines and very flat country. It felt just like Illinois! By the time we were further south, the view from the train exposed the incredible poverty of these small towns and villages. It was really depressing. It was also exciting because of all those strange sounding towns..Beograd, Sofia, Zabgreb and more.

Again, I really do know how very lucky I was to have those six months. We really managed to pack a lot in, but still took time to study get to know each other and explore Eningen. A few years ago I went back and stopped into the tourist center. They remember us. There are other students there now. They don't get the benefit of the Strassenbahn as it is gone, but the Achalm is still there and they still make that great alcoholic apple drink that comes in crocks.

Pam

Some very interesting experiences on East bloc traveling. I did a little of that, looking back at it too little, ie, should have gone to Poland, which would have been Poznan, which was doable in 1987.

The only two East bloc places I saw were Czechoslovakia (the CSSR) in 1973 and East Berlin in 1984 as apart of a tour from West Berlin, Potsdam in '87 on a tour from West Berlin. I was heading to Prague alone from Nürnberg on the train (that route was covered by a train then, not a DB bus); at Cheb the train stopped for the passport check for at least half and hour. Like all East bloc countries, there was a visa requirement, their way of getting hard currency along with a mandatory daily exchange, which you had to comply with for the length of your stay. That you had to indicate to "them" when you got the visa. I had planned on going just to Prague, staying at the huge hostel without a reservation, gotten the visa in Paris, where I saw lots of Americans (fellow backpackers like I was and more conventional travelers) doing likewise.

The time spent at the train station at Cheb was my first encounter with East bloc commie red tape, saw the dogs being led about sniffing under the train, the border guards on the platform milling about slinging the rifles. Their brown uniforms struck me ill fitting, thought: these guys need a better tailor.

All windows had been pulled down with people leaning on them.... just like I was doing. The sun was beaming on us, hot in July. I don't believe I had any apprehensions about going into a communist country solo. After all, my papers (photo, visa, Passport) and my train ticket with that mandatory "Platzkarte" (first thing they looked at, this Platzkarte indicating your seat), were all in order and I would be heading to the hostel, which was what was expected of youth travelers and what they did. Two events at the train platform reassured me.

First, a German woman, 40ish or so, saw me and said, "Tschechoslowakei, nicht streng." (not strict). I always kept that in mind, mainly because it served to reassure me that it wasn't going to be as stalinist as East Germany. Being noisy I asked if she was a Sudenten, since I knew that Cheb with its former name Eger was the first town just across the border in the former Sudetenland.

The second and more advantageous event was meeting these two American backpackers from New York. When I heard one of them shuffling the deck of cards while there at Cheb, I figured they had to be Americans. We all linked up, nice guys who were even younger than I was. When we pulled into the station in Prague at 1900, what struck me was the crowd and that signs were tri-lingual, Czech, German, Russian. First thing, first...get some local currency by exchanging an Am. Ex. travelers check otherwise we couldn't even ride the tram to get to the hostel. We never stayed at that multifloor hostel, all booked up. The Czech receptionist, very accomodating by letting us leave our luggage in a designated room and very helpful, spoke to us automatically in German. Nowadays it would be English, never asked her if she spoke English. Long story short, we ended up staying in a student dorm, no breakfast, spartan but in a clean and private room.

I went to college at age 53 and six years later graduated with a Bachelors and an MBA. Near the end of the MBA program was a series of classes on international business and they offered an optional 10 day International business trip to France in lieu of taking the classes. This was 2004 and the price plus airfare was $2,750. Having only been out of the country once (Vietnam) I was both excited and scared, and spoke no French. We flew into Paris and took a bus to LeHarve where we attended several classes on international shipping. LeHarve is the second largest port in Europe and a sister port to the one in New Orleans where I lived. Afterward we visited Honfleur which became my favorite small town on the trip and moved on to Caen. That was followed by a visit to the WWII museum there and the American Cemetery at Omaha beach which was quite moving. On the way back to Paris we stopped at an apple winery where we learned about their business and had a wonderful dinner which included a different wine with each course. The next day we went to a Renault truck plant and watched cabs built by robotics and a complete truck assembly, plus meeting the CEO who explained how their business worked internationally. They are the largest truck manufacturer in the world. Ironically the next day we saw Louis Vuitton purses cut and stitched together by hand, quite a contrast to the truck plant. The next five days were mostly free days in Paris, with a side trip by bullet train to Brussels for three lectures on the EU, and a Thanksgiving dinner (American style) in a Paris restaurant. Other than that we briefly saw the usual Paris sights. For a kid whose parents had a 5th and 6th grade education and lived week to week I was certainly out of my element.....but I was hooked. Since then I have taken my wife and her mother on three two week trips to Italy, Scotland, England and in September, back to France. For the first week I took them to Normandy to share what I'd seen nine years earlier, and the second week to Avignon, my wife's life-long dream. Next year I'm going back alone for a month, partially to do what I didn't get to do with them and partly to explore new places I've never seen. A little scary, but I'm going to do it anyway. Amazing what that first trip did to open up the world for me.

Jim

Loved your story, Jim.

Ever see the movie If It's Tuesday This Must Be Belgium? It came out just a year after my 1968 student tour of Europe, and could have been a documentary of my whirlwind trip.

The flight itinerary was Long Beach CA -> JFK -> Gatwick -> Rome (Ciapino) -> Munich -> Paris* -> Gatwick -> Shannon -> Chicago -> Long Beach. All air travel was on chartered, well-worn DC-7/DC-7C aircraft. Now, for me as a pilot, having flown in these classic propeller-driven airliners is a cherished aviation memory. But then they were noisy, slow and unreliable -- 8 hours from LGB to JFK, and upwards of 12 hours JFK to Gatwick (and that after a balky engine kept us an extra night in New York).

(We were *supposed to land in Paris, but instead they flew us to Brussels with the excuse of "political unrest" in Paris, and put us on a bus from Brussels to Paris. The truth was that the charter airline was in deep financial trouble and owed fuel bills in Paris, among other places. It went out of business later that summer, stranding other student groups overseas. This led to closer FAA oversight of the charter industry.)

They put us up in fleabag hotels in London and Rome, and in university dorms in Paris. But for the week in Bavaria we stayed in private homes in the charming lakeside town of Dießen am Ammersee. Nobody in town spoke English, and I had studied just enough German in high school to get by. I loved Dießen -- so much so that 45 years later (just two months ago) I took my wife back there on our 40th wedding anniversary trip. We found it even more wonderful than I remembered.

Our recent trip, to Dießen, Venice, Assisi and Rome, was to a large extent a long-awaited fulfillment of that travel "tease" of 1968.

1968 photo album here

2013 photo album here

Jeff, that 1968 photo album was great! Those were some pretty nice shots for a 1968 camera. Did you just scan the prints to get them digital, or use some other process?

Scanned from Agfachrome color slides. Camera was an early Canon (Leica knock-off) 35mm rangefinder.

Jeff, those are great pictures! I need to do the same with my pictures from my 70'strip. I didn't have as good camera, but I did take slides. Hmm, maybe a project for Christmas vacation.

I feel like I should be seeing Ringo, Paul, George or John in some of those UK shots. Loved the plaid suit on one woman. I bet it matched my plaid wool pants. Love the tram in Naples. The pictures of Germany look so familiar. I was a little further west five years later. When I went back, it was similar, but your pictures are closer to what I remember.

Thanks for sharing!

PAm

I am enjoying everyones stories.. so interesting.

1970, I was 8. Visit to my first visit to my french grannys for the summer, mom and little sister were with me. We spent from mid june thru september with granny. I did not like Paris, too busy and big for this little city girl ,, only wanted to stay at grannys house in small town outside Paris (Andresy) (was massive, with a real wine celler a huge garden and two kitchens!) and play in yard and visit local swimming pool. We visited various family and friends at their summer homes all summer.. a week in Provence, a week in Normandy, etc .. can't remember all the places. Liked being spoilt by granny,, and we were. Hated not having food I was used to.. ( trust me I got used to alot of things pretty quick,, my mom was not one of those new wave parents who cater to picky.. lol ) .

Second visit was same 3 months , only alone this time. I was 13 and it was apparently time for me to learn French. Granny spoke no english. Its amazing that I can still BARELY speak french even though that was the first of several solo summer visits to granny. I discovered neighborhood girls wanted to speak english with me.. yippee.. I helped them learn english.. my french never caught up, lol

My first time in Europe was in 1962, the summer after my junior year in college. I was in the Navy ROTC and they sent me on a 6 week "Med Cruise".

To start we left Baltimore in the late afternoon in a 4 engine prop cargo plane that had temporary seats bolted down the middle. We refueled in Labrador, had breakfast in the Azores, overnighted at a military base in French Morocco, and finally landed in Italy two days after we started. (Come to think of it, today's flights are not much better, just shorter.) Got on a destroyer near Pisa, went to Naples and then spent 4 weeks being sea sick on the trip back across the Atlantic. This did NOT make me like traveling to Europe.

The Navy did ignite the travel bug in me by sending me cross country several times. It also got me to the Philippines, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore (all as part of deployments to Viet Nam). After leaving the Navy, raising 4 children, and with the short US vacations, we just did not have the money or time to travel overseas. We did manage to travel in the US by camping. We now travel the US in a motor home and love it.

Travel to Europe came later. I had a 3 month work assignment in Germany and later my youngest son was stationed in Germany by the Air Force. We "had" to travel to Europe several times to see our grandkids. We got to see quite a bit of Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands. There was a trip to Ireland because my wife is Irish. Not Europe, but we also did make a 3 week trip to China.

I like traveling to Europe but still love traveling in the US. We have so much to see in our own country. I could spend a fall or spring in southern Utah and summer in Alaska every year. My wife would not turn down another winter trip to Hawaii. However, we do try to keep it balanced and are now actively planning a 4 week trip to Italy next May.

My first trip to Europe was in January 1976 as a senior in college. I remember my 6th grade teacher telling the class that most of us in his class would travel to Europe in our lifetimes. I watched for my chance from then on! I had wanted to go to Italy for my Junior Year Abroad in college, but my father would not let me and as he was paying for my education, that was that. However, I paid my own way on an Art History tour (art major) through another college for my senior year January independent study. The trip was all inclusive, 3 1/2 weeks Paris, Nice, Venice, Florence and Rome for $900.00. It was fantastic. I have kicked myself ever since for not going back for a period of months after graduation.

I had the following opinions about my trip at age 21:
1. French and Italian children must be very smart to speak French and Italian so well! (LOL)
2. Pack light. I did. I had a small suitcase and a purse. There was one girl whose suitcase was so large she couldn't pick it up, had to drag it. Needless to say, not one of us helped her. Still, I don't think she learned her lesson.
3. All the art I didn't see, that I asked about, was allegedly in the Rijksmuseum. I'll get there eventually.
4. I learned I could travel solo, because I wouldn't have made some mistakes the professors made…of course, I would have likely made others. (I have never taken another tour.)
5. Venice would be a good location for folding bikes.
6. There might be a market in Europe for peanut butter.
7. A moneybelt was not on my radar. No one lost their passport or wallet.
8. I love sleeping on trains.
9. I would return.
My brother asked me what my favorite thing about the trip was and I told him Bernini's Daphne and Apollo. He thought I was nuts (and still does). Whenever I'm in Rome I still go to the Borghese Villa to see this piece, but then I will see any Bernini sculpture I can find.
I've been back to Europe many times, but still feel I have only scratched the surface…and that's just Europe. There is so much to see in this world and so little time.
Wray

Oh wow, Susan. What Is Love was part of the soundtrack to my first Europe too!
My best friend declared she was going to Europe and out of raging envy I got a second job so that I could save up and go too. We both were already travelers; just had not gone outside of the US. We were 25 years old.
We went on a 4.5 week Contiki tour, which is for 18-35 year olds. Out of 48 people on the tour, only four of us were from the USA, so it was quite the mixed group...Australians, Kiwis, So Africans, Canadians, Mexicans, Japanese and Hong Kong Chinese. Contiki is another way to say "party your way across Europe" and we did!
We stayed in a mixture of campgrounds and awesome spots like a chateau in the Beaujolais region, repurposed convent on Lido, ski chalet in Hopfgarten, etc. The one thing they all had in common was a nightclub located on site and lots of young folks from all around the world hanging out.
Went through eleven countries. Made friendships that lasted years.

Some favorite memories:
-14 hour flight to London and arriving at 7am, not able to check in until 4pm, and spending the day jet lagged and drooling like zombies in the British Museum
-Getting twelve drunk females back on the Metro to our Paris campsite after a night of carousing (and only one day in the city). Still not sure how I did that.
-Staying up all night on the beach in Barcelona with a large group and all of us sharing stories about our home countries
-Speaking Australian slang by the first week in
-Knowing that one day in Barcelona was not enough
-Capering like a fool when I won $700 on roulette in Monaco and then spending it all in Florence
-Falling in love with Italy,Italian men and Italian food. Had a GREAT time with the Italian males :)
-Being in a crowded Florence bar favored by Aussie expats on the night they found out Sydney was getting the Olympics and the whole bar breaking out into "Waltzing Mathilda"
-A Cappuchin monk in Rome who took a strange interest in me. He ignored everyone else in the gift shop of the Crypts, grabbed me by the hand and held onto it while I was browsing, spoke not a word and insisted that I take a poem about needing to have a child that was coming to me. When a few others with me tried to get a copy of the poem, he shook his finger in their faces and poked me in the chest.
-Eating at a local joint (FABULOUS meal) on Lido and hanging out with the owners and locals until past closing
-Lauterbrunnen....jaw droppping
-Spending a day by myself wandering through Vienna and several hours in a local pub that night
-Listening to "Smoke on the Water" while sailing on Lake Geneva
-Visiting Mauthausen and being moved beyond description.
-Not being comfortable in Germany at first, partially because of Mauthausen
-Oktoberfest in Munich. Oh wow.Just wow.
-Coffee shops and sex shows in Amsterdam. HEY! I was young.

After that first Europe trip I had my daughter a few years later and we traveled a lot here in the US. Due to my circumstances as a single mother, I was unable to get her a passport until she was 16, so since she was a toddler we'd do camping trips (Montana, Yosemite), and sight seeing trips to Washington DC, NYC, Seattle, Hawaii, San Diego, Grand Canyon, etc. My friends and I do a lot of what we call "music and bars" trips...New Orleans every few years, Austin, Nashville a lot.
Last year I took my daughter to Italy for my first trip back, and two weeks ago I took both her & my mother to Italy again. Right now I'm planning on Ireland for 2014.

Enjoyed everyone's stories. It's so nice to read other traveler's memories.

My first trip was in 1988. My college German professor arranged for me to live with a family he knew and they arranged a summer job for me (I was paid under the table--no visa required). I spent the last month traveling around West Germany. Being 20 years old, I decided it'd be a great idea to travel to Berlin (which required a train through East Germany) by myself. Then in Berlin, I got a day visa for East Berlin--and again went by myself.

On the train back to the west, I was sound asleep when the East German border guards came through the train checking everyone's passports. They had to wake me up and while I dug around for my passport, they asked me questions in German which I sleepily answered in German. When I finally pulled out the passport and they saw I was an American, they seemed excited and asked me to come with them. I spent 15-20 minutes with 5-6 East German guards who were all carrying AK47s, answering their questions. Actually it was a bunch of friendly questions about where in the US I came from, what had I seen on my trip so far, what was my life like as a college student in the US, what did I like best on my trip, etc. They were so excited to meet an american who spoke German, they were practically giddy. They were very polite and were clearly enjoying the conversation.

My parents did not hear about any of this until I was back in the U.S. They were not amused.

18 months after I returned to the U.S., the Berlin wall fell, so I was glad I went.

I must be a late bloomer. I went to Europe for the first time this past April, to Paris for 6 nights with my daughters French club. It was amazing! The first day we went to the Eiffel Tower and even though I'm afraid of heights, I figured what the heck, I'm going to the top! I literally started to cry, it was just so beautiful. We had a totally guided tour that week and saw so much - Seine boat cruise, Eiffel Tower, arc de Triomphe, Place Des Vosges, Musee Carnavalet, the Louvre. Versailles, and so much more. My husband & I will celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary next year and we are going to both London & Paris. I cannot wait to share my love of Paris with him, and see London for the first time.

I've really enjoyed reading the stories, so will share mine. Our first time was to celebrate our Silver Wedding Anniversary in 1984. We flew to London, spent several days seeing the top sites on our list: The Tower of London, Westminster Abbey and the British Museum. We then took a train to Oxford, and enjoyed our stay there for a couple of days. A favorite memory is eating at the Turf Tavern, a 13th century ale house. We then rented a car and visited Bath, the Cotswold villages, Stratford upon Avon, Warwick Castle, and several other places. We loved the beautiful, green countryside and the quaint villages. We took the train back to London for a couple more days and did side trips to Windsor Castle and Hampton Court, then took the train to Edinburgh, Scotland where we walked the Royal Mile and visited Edinburgh Castle at one end and Holyrood Palace at the other. We loved all of Edinburgh. We rented a car and drove back into England along Hadrian's Wall to the Lake District where we spent the night. It was lovely. We then drove east to York for a couple of days where we visited York Minster, which was incredible, then walked the old town walls. It is a fascinating city. We drove back to Edinburgh, visiting Durham and Newcastle on the way. We took the train back to London in time for the Trooping the Colour ceremony to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's birthday. We managed to get places next to the road and saw Queen Elizabeth, Prince Phillip and Prince Charles ride by on horseback and the Queen Mum and Princess Diana ride by in an open carriage. It was a wonderful experience that we will never forget. An interesting footnote to the story is that later that summer the local (we lived in Washington State at the time)radio station was celebrating its' Silver Anniversary and held a contest and the prize was a trip to London. They asked 25 question related to Great Britain and we were lucky enough to win, thus we returned to London for a week just 3 months later! We have since returned to Europe several times, mostly on Rick's Tours. Our 2012 and 2013 scrapbooks are linked to Rick's website under Theresa and William Barr if anyone is interested in looking at them.

My first trip was in 2005. My husband (fiancé at the time) had just returned from Iraq. He wanted me to fly to Germany so I could meet him there. As soon as I arrived, he told me to get nice and comfy because we would be driving for awhile. I slept. After a few hours of sleeping, I woke up to find us surrounded by snow. We were driving down a windy road. Suddenly we came to a clearing, my husband told me to look to my right. As soon as I turned my head, there it was... Neuschwanstein & Hohenschwangau castle's. It was beautiful. He arranged for us to stay in this gorgeous little hotel that had a balcony facing the castles. It was a memorable trip. I still find myself looking at the photo's we had taken, feeling like it was just yesterday. That trip left me wanting more of Europe. I think my husband sometimes regrets taking me because I'm always talking about and researching our next trip. Thankfully he enjoys travelling as much as I do. We didn't return to Europe until 2007 when we went to Florence. Later that same year we moved to Germany (Oct 07-Dec 08) , so I was able travel a lot. When we returned to the states, it would take us a little over 3 years before we could go back to Europe due to my husband's chaotic work schedule, but we've made the most of it and have been able to return 3 times in the last 1 1/2 years!

My 1st time to Europe was in June, 1986. My Army Reserve unit went to Hanau, Germany for our 2 week summer training. This was so exciting, as I had always wanted to go to Europe. Though we had to work shifts in the mess hall every day, we still managed to make it to the local pubs in the evening. Our arrival night in Hanau, a group of us went to a near-by Gasthaus. Tried the schnitzel, the local beers, then the 1st applekorn, (no it doesn't taste like apples at all!) and the local drink, apple wine. A bit of confusion with the bathrooms, as we thought Herr meant it was for women, Her. Lots of laughter. Physical training the next morning was fun after our indulgences the night before. Our unit stayed in big fest tents on Army cots, but the cooks got to stay in the attic of the mess hall, since we had to be at work at 04:00 or work all night with the night baker. These were old WW2 buildings, so it was pretty cool. One afternoon we went exploring in Hanau, which was the hometown of the Grimm brothers. Loved the fountains in the streets, the old architecture, and trying the food. The fashions seemed more exotic than Ohio.

Had a free Sat. so we took the train to Frankfurt. This was the first train ride for many of us, so this felt exciting too. We went to the applewine pub district of Frankfurt, Sachsenhausen. The place was packed and because the weather was hot, all of the outside tables were filled with people partying. I knew I wasn't in Columbus any more, and I loved it.

The next day, we went back to Frankfurt and explored the city, eating gelato and bratwursts and really enjoying being in this famous, old German city.

A large group of us went on a bus trip to the Fulda Gap to see where the division of Germany went through. This was an emotional visit, learning about those who died trying to escape E. Germany, and seeing the guard towers and the no-mans strip between the countries. Very shocking. I hadn't really thought much about this before, so it was very eye opening, and led to me learning more about this part of German history, as well as all the other eras.

Well, on that evening in Sachsenhausen, I met a German man, and it was one of those love at 1st sight things. We began writing every day, he came to Ohio for a month, and by 3 Nov. 1986, I had moved to Frankfurt. The relationship lasted 8 yrs. and after our divorce, I stayed here.

It is now 27 years later and I still love Frankfurt and living in Germany. What I remember most about coming here the first time though, was how it felt. It was thrilling and exciting, and yes, even exotic. Even after I moved here, these same feelings were there for quite a while. I felt at home, like I was supposed to live here, that I belonged. Ohio felt constrictive and was too conservative for me. Europe felt like an open vista, where I could immerse myself in the history, walk the cobblestones where emperors walked, sit in a church that was 1000 years old, and be in another country in the space of a couple of hours on the train. Somewhere where the money, the language, the food and the architecture were all different. This is one of the things I enjoy most about living here.

My first time (without parents) was when I was 20. I went with my best friend (26) who had been the summer before and I just followed her lead. When she arrived to pick me up on the way to the airport, she went through my backpack saying “don’t need this, don’t need that” taking stuff out until more than half of my stuff was rejected. (rick would have approved) We travelled for 2 months from Amsterdam through France and Italy to Greece then back through Switzerland with Eurail Passes and experienced night trains and hostels, cheap wine and deck space and everything in between. Did anyone else experience “The Pink Palace” on Korfu?
Now, 30 years later (yikes) my teen daughters are planning their independent trip to Europe and I hope it’s just the beginning of their adventures together.

1980 young and in love.. Had dropped out of college and was going out with my future wife, Dianne. Not knowing what to do with my life and $2500 burning a hole in my pocket we did what any clear thinking young couple would do. We went to Europe for two months, mostly living in a 2 person pup tent. We rented an Opel Kadett and drove all over western Europe with no itinerary, just a return ticket. We spent time in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Holland, and France. We met many locals and fellow travelers, and mostly stayed in small campgrounds, a handful of YH's, and I think only one B&B. We literally did it on $12 a day. We got married and raised a family and didn't get back to Europe until 1999 and have been fortunate to go every year since. We don't do the warm weather vacations so Fall is always our 2 weeks in Europe time. Shoulder season, cheaper air fare, less crowds and cooler weather. We have brought our kids on a few of the trips too. My favorites now are London and Southern Germany. Currently planning a trip with my son and his new bride for September 2014. Into Munich and out of Amsterdam are our only plans so far. As always, can't wait... Jeff & Dianne