After the peace and quiet of Ios Athens was almost unbearable. Noisy, polluted, busy. We badly wanted to turn round and go back to the islands, but of course we couldn’t. Being rather dishevelled and dusty – hot showers weren’t in abundance on the island – we decided to head to the Youth Hostel No 1. It took us a while to get there and when we did, at 7:30am we found that we needed to leave at 9am. So no chance of sleeping, but at least we could get a shower and change our clothes.
We headed back into the city and decided to visit the Acropolis again and the museum. It was another hot day and we were struggling by the afternoon when we decided to head back to the hostel and have a nap. It was also my 18th birthday so we celebrated that night with our favourite Gyros meal.
Early Monday morning we had another shower and got our gear together ready to set off home. We had very little money by then so went via the hospital to donate blood for which we got paid a few quid, enough to get us home. It was a lovely sunny day and by 11am we were on the road hoping for our first lift. We soon got one as far as Larissa where we were stuck. We went to the loos at a rather nice looking petrol station and somehow got talking to a Greek-American older man who said he was driving all the way to Bremerhaven in north Germany and was happy to take us with him. We were dubious about that, but decided we would chance it. By the end of the day we were back in Skopje. It was a huge American car with so much space and we became navigators and conversationalists in return for the lift and food, just like it was with Harry!
Instead of the coastal route this time we went through the centre of Yugoslavia which was a complete contrast. It was dull, the weather was dreary and everything looked so grey. We even saw fields still being ploughed by oxen. The towns we stopped in appeared quite poor. It all looked very bleak. We passed Beograd, Zagreb and Ljubljana and eventually stopped to spend the night in Austria. The driver (whose name I unfortunately did not record) went to stay in a motel, but Cathy and I decided to sleep in the car, the seats were wide enough for us to stretch out. I say sleep, but it was so cold we really only dozed. A loo break at dawn and then we continued until 8:30am when we stopped at yet another pretty Austrian inn where we had a substantial continental breakfast.
At this point we decided that if we did get to Bremerhaven we could possibly have a few days in Amsterdam on our way home. So we continued through Munich through Nuremberg and Kassel, where we decided to hop out and find the youth hostel as we were desperately tired. It was too cold to camp now and we really needed a proper night’s sleep and a decent meal. It was a lovely clean welcoming hostel.
The following day we hitched towards Hannover. It was a slow day of travel, frequent, but short hops and spending more time waiting than actually travelling, but we had no choice, we had to keep some money back for the ferry over the channel. We eventually reached Hannover and then headed towards Osnabruck using a mix of autobahn and other main roads. As the sun was setting we had reached Melle and it was becoming very cold – we weren’t dressed for the cold having left in the summer and spending the last couple of months in the south – luckily there was a youth hostel nearby, a rather beautiful timber framed building and we had the whole female dormitory to ourselves. Another piece of luck was that a group from West Berlin were playing at the hostel that night “Ton Steine Scherber” a political German language rock band who were very much into the works of Marx and Lenin. The songs were mostly protest songs and actually rather good though our linguistic skills were definitely not up to the after show discusions so we opted for our beds.
The morning after another good shower and breakfast we were back on the road to Osnabruck and the Dutch border where we got a lift by a lovely Dutch airman to Utrecht and from there a couple of lifts to Amsterdam where once again we headed to a very popular youth hostel. The journey north had been a lot easier than our southern route, but maybe that was because it was now autumn and there weren’t so many people hitchhiking.
And no need for the mallet.
TRAVEL WORDS 
You were pretty lucky, overall, weren’t you? Several times it could have ended in tears. Receiving cash for giving blood- I doubt that still happens? The Greek-American sounds like a nice guy. Eastern Europe was a different world in those days. Still recovering from Communism. But you got to see the Acropolis- twice! 18, Jude! A different life… xx
Different times then. No EU. Still the Berlin Wall. Tito in Yugoslavia, Franco in Spain. We were lucky. And I was lucky hitchhiking on my own a year later, to Zurich. But it could have ended badly…
I agree with you down the line, Jo. I’ve been enjoying the stories while always hoping for nothing bad to happen!!
I didn’t realise you were so young when you did that trip! Great that you were able to find such good hostels and lifts on the way back and yes, great that there was no need for the mallet!
It didn’t seem that young then. I’d left school and was working. Young people seem to be kids much longer nowadays.
That was a fabulous part of the journey Jude. The “And no need for the mallet.” made me laugh
Good ole mallet 😂
A pretty lucky journey on the whole. Only 18? So you’d left school pre A Levels? I hadn’t realised that. University of Life,eh!
I was an A student throughout, until my final year when I was a bit more rebellious. I’d had enough of rules so eager to leave school.
I know the feeling …
Our careers adviser basically said clever girls would be teachers and I thought, more school, uni and back to school. No thanks. I was late to uni and later still to teaching. I enjoyed uni though it was very tough as I was a single parent raising 4 kids. But I hated secondary school teaching. Should never have gone into that.
That was it! Clever girls? Teaching. Slightly less clever? Nursing. Hopeless cases? Banking. Yep, I went late to university, and my teaching career was very short. Hated it.
The oxen being used for ploughing reminded me of how many donkeys were still being used when my parents moved to Spain in the early 80s. The area they were in has changed a lot and I’m sure it would be hard to find a donkey there now.
A tough life at that time.
Lucky break with the Greek-American guy. I hadn’t realised quite how young you were. What an intrepid 17/18-year-old!
Yes that was a fortunate ride. I didn’t feel that I was too young, but when I look at my grandchildren there’s no way they would do anything like that, even if not hitchhiking. We seem to keep them young for much longer now.
A smooth journey apart from the cold, and good to hear the mallet wasn’t necessary! I was surprised to read how young you were – I’d been imagining a 20 year old Jude or maybe even a little older than that!
At 20 I was doing the overland trip to India. Much more experienced then 😂
I hope you’re planning to write that one up for us too?
Already done
I’ll check that out 😀
The actual journey starts here
Thanks, I’ll look at that too. I enjoyed the first piece and related to your mother’s vague childhood memories as my father had similarly vague ones. His father, my grandfather, was an officer in the army and was posted to India when Dad was a toddler. My grandmother often talked about their time there but she was prone to exaggeration and elaborating her takes, so we aren’t too sure how much of what she described actually happened! But Dad did corroborate her story about him sleeping one afternoon and a snake being discovered curled up on his bed! According to my grandmother it was venomous but we have no way of knowing if that was the case – it certainly didn’t bite or harm him.
I wish I could comment on those old posts! I’m really enjoying the read and just had to mention that I think 50 camels was definitely a compliment 😀 When we were in Egypt very many years ago a taxi driver proposed a similar deal to Chris and I believe only offered one camel! He also offered to buy Chris’s sunglasses for a similar amount – I was NOT flattered!
So wonderful to hear travel stories that took place in different times – quite a magical journey!
So glad you have enjoyed my tales.
Oh my, what an adventurer you were Jude!! (and I suppose still are!!). Greece is one of the few places we’ve not been and I’d love to see the ancient ruins. Sad these days that so many places simply are not safe for young travelers. We were very lucky to have been so many places when it was more do-able.
Not much of a traveller nowadays. I haven’t been out of the country since 2016. Family illnesses, an elderly parent, then Covid and then we weren’t keen on flying again. And now it’s me on my own, so something I have to get used to. I am very grateful to have been to all the places I have.
I agree so strongly about kids being and acting much younger these days. I was working full-time at 17 and a half, driving my own car, and expected to behave like a grown man. Now I have a 40 year-old stepson who acts like a sulky 14 year-old most of the time. I remember being really fed up in Athens. It was far too hot, too busy and hectic, and once we had seen all the ‘big sites’ in a couple of days, I couldn’t wait to get out of there. It didn’t feel like a holiday at all.
Best wishes, Pete. x
True. I think we were more grown up then. And had more freedom too.