Category: Europe

The road to Istanbul is pretty direct from Thessaloniki and we were confident there would be plenty of traffic. After a couple of lifts in a row we found ourselves on the eastern side of Xanthi where the first of our troubles began. We were taken to Alexandroupoli where the driver and his mate expected us to stay in a motel with them and we had to virtually fight our way out of the car (remember the tent mallet?) Our first warning about accepting a lift with two males.

It wasn’t our day as the next lift was equally problematical. Although there was only the driver in the car, he took us off road and through woods to a place where he met up with some friends. No friends of ours though. Once again the mallet proved a deterrent. And we were left in the middle of nowhere with only a couple of houses and a petrol station nearby. We slept at the petrol station feeling very vulnerable and upset.

The next day however was much better, we got several good lifts including one in a Land Rover driven by an American accompanied by his young daughter who took us quite a distance into Turkey. The countryside was quite pretty before we entered Turkey, but from there it was quite barren and the road was dead straight so you could see for miles ahead. It was quite boring, but at least it was a safe ride.

When they dropped us off after buying us a meal in Tekirdağ we got a lift with a very eccentric lorry driver whose load was watermelons. He was very hands on should we say, and not always on the steering wheel. Once again the trusty mallet came to our rescue. I’m not sure who had the most bruises though. We called a halt to the abuse as we neared Istanbul and got out close to a camp site with one very large watermelon for our troubles!

After an exhausting couple of days we remained in the camp that afternoon and night happily sharing the watermelon with other backpackers. And on the following day we headed into the city by bus. It was busy. So many people of so many nationalities. We were soon approached by a young Turkish lad, about sixteen I’d say, who decided to be our guide and took us around the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia and then the Grand Bazaar where we bought sandals and a kaftan.

He expertly protected us from all the older men who tried to harass us. We enjoyed sipping ice cold real lemonade and eating sweet cakes and visiting the infamous Pudding Shop where travellers placed adverts looking for a partner. Many were American draft dodgers heading for India. Handing our young guide a tip we happily returned to the campsite to spend our last evening there.

The evening was spent in the company of a lad from Leicester who was with a Eurobus expedition. He joined us and played his guitar for a while and he was also a musician who played in a band back home. There seemed to be a lot of them on the road at this time.

The next day we were back on the road and got a lift almost immediately with a man in a rather beautiful car (I was not at all au fait with the different makes and models at the time, but I knew this one looked expensive.) He said he’d take us as far as Tekirdağ, but on reaching the crossroads outside the city instead of heading straight ahead towards the Greek border he turned right onto the road to Sofia in Bulgaria. It took some not too gentle persuasion – and yes the use of the mallet – to get him to pull over and let us out. It was the threat of me smashing his rear window that helped to change his mind.

It wouldn’t be the last of our difficulties in getting back to the Greek border. By 4pm we were roughly 50km from the border at Ipsala and we were stuck. It looked as though we’d be there for the night when we got a lift together – it was amazing how many people (men) stopped and offered to give one of us a lift. This was from another two Germans who looked harmless enough and we had had several good lifts from Germans – remember Harry and Ben? They took us to Alexandroupoli where we stayed the night close to the sea and then continued with them the following day to within 100 kms to Thessaloniki.

We rested for a while by the side of the road in the heat of the day. It was quiet. We relaxed in the sweet scent of some unknown flowers nearby and picked ripe blackberries, glad at last to be out in the fresh air after being cooped up in cars for so long. The decision to head to Istanbul had proved to be both traumatic and exhausting.

Not our best idea.

We eventually arrived in Thess around 3pm and made our way back to the previous campsite at Agias Triados which almost felt like home.

(for some reason I have hardly any photos of Istanbul from this journey – maybe I was out of camera film)

We were thankful to still be in one piece, not to mention alive or be sex slaves in Bulgaria!

Time to reflect.

The following day we set off after breakfast on what we thought would be the most difficult part of our journey to Greece. We needed to get across the mountains up into the central part of Yugoslavia and Skopje which was the closest major city to the Greek border. We got a lift quite quickly with a German couple, Ben and his girlfriend Utie in a lovely VW campervan. They also had a huge Great Dane, Sara. We stayed with them all day and continued down to Ulcinje which is the southernmost point of the country, bordering Albania which at that time was closed off to westerners. We ended up staying the night with them as they were so friendly. Drinking wine and listening to radio Luxembourg around a fire pit. We had a shock though when we woke up the following morning to find we were on a nudist beach! For two innocent lasses from Yorkshire this was fairly mind boggling!

We left Ben in the afternoon to find out about buses to Skopje and discovered that the next one was at 6pm. Whilst waiting for the bus we hunted for a bank (more difficult than you’d imagine) to get some currency for the journey. It was around £5 for the two of us. We came across some young locals who were keen to practice their English with us and stayed with us all afternoon even waving us off when the bus departed .

The bus journey was hell (though a couple of years later I would discover an even more hellish journey). We kept being badgered to give up our seats, but we took no notice. We’d paid for seats and we were keeping them. It was an 11 hour journey and although it was a luxury coach, sitting all that time was not fun. We arrived stiff and cramped and tired at 5:30am on a very dull, grey day. A fortnight after leaving home.

After finding a bakery open and buying fresh bread (the only time to eat it as later it became as hard as hell), we followed signposts to the road leading to the Greek border. It was a fair distance and we got a few odd looks from people on the way. We did manage to get a lift quite quickly though he wasn’t going all the way to the border and traffic on that road was very light with pretty much only an odd tractor every half hour. We eventually reached the border 6 hours later where we took advantage of the facilities to get washed and comb our hair after the unsettled night, find biscuits and milk before crossing the ‘no-mans land’ to reach the other border post.

With luck we spotted a car with a GB sticker so quickly raced ahead to try and get through the border before them so we could try and get a lift. And with more luck it stopped for us. Three lads from one of the home counties who happily agreed to take us to Thessaloniki and a camp site there. It was actually so nice to have someone to speak English with after two weeks. We pitched our tent close to the boys and spent several days there. It was a lively camp site with fire pits and lots of music (Woodstock mainly – this was 1971 after all) and we spent our days on the beach or going into Thess and walking around. There was an International Fair on whilst we were there so it was very busy. One downside was that I got very badly bitten by mosquitos which made me feel quite ill.

For some reason we made the (bad) decision to head over to Istanbul rather than down to the Greek islands. So after saying our farewells to the Brits who were heading homewards we continued our hitchhiking journey on the road to Kavala.

And this is when the “fun” began.

As we watched Harry drive off we took a deep breath. Now we were alone again in a country we knew absolutely nothing about¹. Importantly we needed sleep so set off to enquire about the campsite we could see. And then a bank to get some local currency. Immediately the tent was pitched we crawled inside and didn’t surface until early the next morning when we had a chance to survey our surroundings.

The campsite was very close to the water and a beach. After finding food at a local market (bread, tomatoes, cheese, fruit) we relaxed on the beach for a while. Swimming in crystal clear water. We soon drew the attention of a group of local lads. They were very insistent. Following us around, trying to talk to us in broken English and a smattering of German. It seemed to us that although they were used to German tourists, English ones were quite a novelty.

We finally shook off the lads when a couple of guys from Geneva started talking to us, they were apparently musicians in a band and certainly had the looks. We spent the rest of the day with them and ended up having dinner at their camp, which was not on the official campsite, but in the hills. Bread, cheese, honey and tomatoes followed by peaches and grapes. Then we lay and watched the stars above. I had never seen such stars. My first sighting of the Milky Way.

The next day we parted company. They were heading back to Switzerland and us to Greece. We caught a bus to Split which was about 20 miles further along the road, intending to have a look around. But it was so hot and so full of tourists that we lost enthusiasm and decided to try our luck hitching. It was slow travel, short lifts taking us in dribs and drabs towards Dubrovnik, and by the time we arrived it was late and everything except for bars was closed. No tourist information office, no clue of where to find a youth hostel or campsite.

Stumped we decided to get our sleeping bags out and lie down on a couple of benches just outside the old town. At around 1:30 am I was awoken by a flashlight in my face and someone taking to me in a foreign language. I looked up to see an armed, uniformed policeman hovering over me. After several minutes of both of us trying to understand one another I attempted my limited school girl German to see if he could help me find a campsite. Unsuccessfully. He understood what I was saying, but simply shrugged his shoulders. He then pointed at Cathy who unbelievably was still sleeping and asked “freundin?” I nodded. He then proceeded to inform me that we could stay where we were, but had to move on as soon as it got light. Relieved I went back to sleep².

We were up by 4:30 as it became light and were packing our things away when the original policeman, accompanied by a colleague arrived to see up off. We were a little nervous as they seemed a bit too interested in us, but they didn’t do or say anything, just watched and waited until we were on our way. We didn’t dare go into the old town but made our way back up to the road where we found a spot that was safe for traffic to stop.

By 7:30 am we were ready to begin hitching south again, but there was very little traffic about. It was already quite warm and after one or two lifts that only took us a few miles further on we spotted a hotel opposite and went inside to see if we could get breakfast. We were a little tired of bread and tomatoes by then. We also had a good look around the grounds of the hotel with its private sandy beach and wished we had the funds to stay in such a place. But it was time to head on back to the road and not long after an Italian couple stopped and gave us a lift all the way to Kotor, a picturesque fortified town set in the Bay of Kotor, a stunning location which resembles a fjord.

We spent some time exploring the town with its narrow streets before enquiring about a campsite. We took a bus there, pitched the tent and then went for a swim in the crystal clear water. In the evening we walked back into the town and enjoyed a glass of cheap wine whilst admiring the views.

• ¹ At that time Yugoslavia was an open socialist state ruled by Tito.
• ² Unbeknown to us armed police used to patrol the old town to stop backpackers from sleeping in the open air.

What can I say about Harry? Among all the people we met on this adventure Harry is the one person among the many we met who I shall never forget. As we enthusiastically waved our sign to Salzburg a convertible black VW with the hood down screeched to a halt. As I ran up to the car he introduced himself to me. Harry from Heidelberg, on his way to Yugoslavia to spend a few days with a girlfriend who lived there. In exchange for our ‘lively’ company he offered us a ride all the way into Yugoslavia. Little did we know what to expect.

Cathy was crammed into the back with all the luggage and I was in the front passenger seat with – I kid you not – a radio / record player balanced on my knees. And that’s how we drove. Throughout the rest of Bavaria, throughout the whole of Austria. We stopped once for a meal and to put the hood up when the air became a little too cool. We were in a typical Austrian inn with the steep roofline, the wooden shutters and balconies and pots of bright red pelargoniums. We ate salami and cheese and hunks of fresh crusty bread and drank beer with orangeade! After the meal Harry fooled around for half an hour playing an ancient out of tune piano and we all sang old tunes from a juke box before tumbling out into the evening to continue on the road.

We carried on singing to songs on the radio to keep Harry awake, though I had an idea he was popping a few pills. We looked out for the road signs as we wove our way through the mountains arriving in Llubljana by midnight which is where Cathy and I were going to leave and head inland. But Harry had other ideas and persuaded us to carry on with him down the Dalmatian coast telling us we would miss the best part of Yugoslavia. I think he just wanted the company and to keep him awake.

And so onwards towards the coast road. We were tired, our voices hoarse from singing when we pulled in at a town around 6 am for the loo and breakfast. It was already warm and the breakfast revived us so we carried on. Harry wasn’t wrong. The scenery was spectacular. The road wound in and out of inlets with sharp bends and narrow stretches where there had been rockfalls. Beautiful little hamlets, clear stretches of the bluest sea we’d ever seen and at the other side of the road, dramatic mountains.

But as time wore on and the sun became hotter, we ran out of words and were too exhausted to take in the scenery so at midday we finally said goodbye to Harry as he dropped us off at a campsite by the side of the water at Trogir, seventeen miles from Split.

He had been driving for close on 18 hours.

Luck decided to pay us a visit then. After our disastrous day of getting absolutely nowhere. Another German lorry driver offered us a lift on his way south. He was young and a little crazy, with radio Luxembourg playing at full volume he laughed and joked with us whilst flying down the autobahn at a speed we didn’t want to know. At least we didn’t fall asleep. Late on we were dropped off at a Rasthof just south of Heidelberg where we pitched our tent in the middle of a grassed island. Too exhausted to find anywhere else. Inevitably we were disturbed a few times with people tripping over the guy lines or peeping in to see who was daft enough to pitch a tent there.

After our long and exhausting day we decided that we would attempt to get to Munich. We both assumed it was doable, but we hadn’t reckoned on the traffic. We were up and ready by 7:30 am and got a lift to Karlsruhe and from there to Leonberg which is not far from Stuttgart, but that’s where our luck ran out. After two hours we were still in the same place and as there was a rather nice campsite not far from us we decided to give up for the day and have a proper night’s sleep in a proper campsite. It was very hot!

After a cool shower and changing into clean clothes we went off to explore the nearby village where we bought fresh milk, peaches and cheese to eat back at the campsite. We spent the rest of the afternoon lazing around. In the evening we went to get a couple of beers from a shop where we got chatting to a pair of German lads and a Dutch guy who decided to give up hiking and take us for a drink. We didn’t stay long as we were determined to get up early and get back on the road.

The next day we were up at dawn, but by 11 am we were still there along with several other hitchhikers. It wasn’t looking good and we were wondering whether to change direction and try another route. Finally at 11:30 am an elderly German chap stopped for us. He didn’t speak a single word to us, but took us as far as Ulm where we got out at another Rasthof. Shortly after we got a lift all the way to Munich where we had planned to camp for a few days. However after attempting to walk to the campsite we discovered that it was a long way from the road, so gave up and turned back to the road deciding to continue our journey.

Because it was so hot and because the day’s travel had been quite difficult we decided to go get a cold beer, forgetting how strong the German beer can be. So it was that an hour or so later we were back on the side of the road frantically waving our sign for Salzburg.

That’s when we met Harry.