InterRail plan, 1984
InterRail plan, 1984
Originally uploaded by jmmcdgll
Found this plan of one the inter-rail trips my mate Ronnie and I did in 1984. i love the concept of inter-rail, the sense of freedom and choice. To some extent we limited our choices because we prebooked which Youth hostels we were going to stay in each night. However, that was part of the fun, planning out where we were going and having the satisfaction of actually achieving these goals-the best bit was slowly easing into Istanbul railway terminal early one morning after a long haul through Bulgaria and knowing we had successfully negotiated independent travel through two rather hostile Communist bloc countries, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. The worst? Stuck in the futuristic, but soul-less concourse of Sofia railway station all night, when we reaslised we had no means of changing money and that our prebooked accommodation was 25 miles away, in a national park. Tarvelling through Europe gave me a taste for books like Graham Greene’s Stamboul Train and the travel writings of Patrick Leigh Fermour. My goal, which I may have to put on hold for a while would be to take the OzBus, from London to Sydney. What could be more exciting than travelling overland through all these countries? My wife and sons think a week in Portugal might be more realistic…sigh……..
Did you make it to all those places in the end?
I always fancied the idea of InterRail (also in the mid ’80s) but could never get enough cash together – spent too much on beer I guess!
Most places; we didn’t do Budapest, but ended up staying longer in Bulgaria, including two nights at Veliko Turnovo, as well as Sofia. Also , stayed in Zagreb and had a night in Belgrade. Of course, this was some 8 years before hell was unleashed on the Balkans, and much of the beautiful countryside of Yugoslavia was laid waste.
Patrick Leigh Fermor speaks eloquently of similar, but more widespread loss in Easter Europe during rise of Facisism and the Second Word War in in his book, “A Time of Gifts”