March 10th: I took a train from Amsterdam to Brussels which was my second scheduled mail pickup from an American Express office. I found the American Express office after a fairly long walk and a number of wrong turns in the center of Brussels. Brussels was fascinating but no one spoke English (or, as I was to learn later in France, they refused to even try to speak English and they found me to be culturally disrespectful if I did not greet them with at least an effort to speak French) and Brussels was so insanely expensive that I could not afford even a youth hostel. I made a day trip out to the Waterloo battlefield and really enjoyed the historical displays/museum and simply seeing the hills and fields of such a major battle that I studied in college and which changed the history of Europe. In the evening, I was exhausted and had no place to stay. So, I went to the train station and found an overnight train to Paris which was free with my first class Eurail pass. On that overnight trip, I learned a lot about how European trains operated.  I had access to the “first class” cabins and was often able to find an unoccupied cabin or, at least, a cabin that had no one sitting on the 3-person seat on one side of the cabin.  I learned to keep all my valuables (passport, international driver license and immunization card, traveler’s checks/cash, and rail pass) in the pouch my mother had sewed for me and which hung around my neck and under my left arm pit.  I wore it 24×7 and even took it with me into showers. 

I didn’t have anything stolen the entire trip.  I usually would slip off my hiking boots (my only footwear) and crawl into my sleeping bag and lay across the 3-person seat.  My sprawled-out presence and the odor of my feet often discouraged other first class passengers from remaining in or from joining my cabin.  The conductors always seemed stern when they would slide the compartment door open to conduct a ticket-check but they also were very professional and never hassled me about sprawling out across a seat or about the odor from my feet. I woke up in Paris and spent the day trying to get my bearings and trying to find an inexpensive place to stay in between getting side-tracked as I came across amazing sites: Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, the Seine, etc. By evening, I was exhausted and still had no place to stay, so I returned to the train station and slept on an evening train to Brussels and then immediately got on the overnight train back to Paris. It was free but left me tired and feeling pretty road-worn.

Paris & Pissin’ in the Sink

Back in Paris, I checked into a very old hotel and was assigned a shared room with a French roommate.  I remember putting my backpack down in the room and turned around to see the roommate pissing in the sink in the room—the bathroom was down the hall.  That really grossed me out and I decided not to wash in that sink…..  Over time on this trip and on future trips, I concluded that “pissin’ in a sink” is sometimes a fairly practical thing to do given all the available options…men and women have different views on the topic!  I checked for mail at the Paris American Express office and letters from home and from my girlfriend along with my sketchy lodging left me feeling lonely.  Fortunately, I quickly made the decision that, like Brussels, Paris was simply too expensive for my budget.  I talked to other travelers I met around Paris and consulted my “Let’s Go Europe” book to plan some French excursions to more rural areas that would hopefully be less expensive.  Lodging expense was the key planning factor, and “Let’s Go Europe” had good lists of youth hostels and cheap hotels along with price ranges.  Starting my first night on the Continent in Bruges, Belgium, I quickly readjusted my lodging expectations from “a room” to just “a bed”.  Dormitory sleeping and sleeping on overnight trains became my norm.  Frequent rain and cold made camping an undesirable option plus campgrounds tended to be quite a ways from any transportation hub and could be expensive if they were open at all in winter.

Brittany, France: Witnessing the Amoco Cadiz Oil Disaster

Probably due to my extensive study of history and fascination with WWII Europe, I headed for Normandy and Brittany. My first stop was Le Havre where I was just hanging along the harbor and met a nice local lady my age who wanted to practice her English. We spent the afternoon together and ended up at her apartment where she made it clear I was welcome to stay overnight but that we would be in separate rooms–that was fine with me as “free lodging” was my primary instinct! She helped me plan a trip along the Normandy Brittany coast including Bayeax, Normandy Beach, Mont Saint-Michel, and St. Malo. I met two co-eds from Notre Dame University near Mont Saint-Michel and we spent two days together–it was really nice to hang out with two Americans for a while. We tentatively agreed to meet in the Loire Valley in a week or so, but, like so many tentative plans on the road, that didn’t happen. Instead, I learned about a very inexpensive Youth Hostel on the coast in Lannion, France, so I caught a train to Lannion for what turned out to be one of the greatest experiences of my life. It was raining quite regularly but I had a great poncho that I wore over my down jacket and it kept me quite dry and warm. Soon, the weather turned into a gale and I largely hung out in harbor bars buying an occasional brandy and playing Otis Redding’s “Sittin on the Dock of the Bay” on the juke box. I noticed that all the televisions in bars were tuned to special news bulletins about the gale force winds and the developing disaster involving the massive oil tanker Amoco Cadiz that had hit a shoal just 2 kilometers off the Brittany coast. Over the next few days, 1.6 million barrels of crude oil leaked out of the crippled ship and washed along the Brittany coast pushed by gale force winds. The youth hostel manager helped me find a moped I could rent. I put on my poncho and rode around the entire coast loop from Lannion to Trebeurden to Perros-Guirec. I stopped frequently at rocky beaches where I watched initial clean-up efforts as the crude oil was blown ashore along with injured birds and fish. I also stopped at every single bar enroute–the locals were crowded around the television sets and were discussion how the oil disaster likely would wipe out their way of living from the sea for years to come. The bar tenders were often amazed as an American guy on a moped pulled up and came through the door with the wind in a soaking wet poncho and most offered me a free brandy to warm up which was greatly appreciated! Witnessing the faces of the fishermen and other locals watching as their environment and livelihoods was being poisoned by “progress” and by “fossil fuels” left a lasting impression which was one of the great take-aways from my Wander of Wonder.

Mont St. Michel monastery was an architectural, spiritual, and historical lesson all in one. Visiting the monastery and experiencing the huge difference between high and low-tide was an eye-opener to a in-land, flat-lander from the central US.

Loire Valley, Rennes, Tours, Chartes Cathedral & Nimes

Once I warmed up from the Lannion mopad adventure, I headed inland and south to get away from the coastal storms. I visited extensive Roman ruins in Rennes, the ampitheatre and other ruins in Tours, and then met three other Americans in a youth hostel who wanted to see the Loire valley. We agreed to split the cost of a rental car which I booked and we made a long day of driving through the vineyards and stopping at Chateaus and sites along our path. That was my only car rental of the entire trip and one of the few times I was in a private car.

I was fascinated by stories of the stained-glass windows in Chartes Cathedral that made it a central pilgrimage site for Christians since even before 876 when Charles the Bald donated to the Cathedral the relic known as the Veil of the Virgin. Additionally, it has such unified architecture and decoration making it an immense influence on Gothic art during the Middle Ages. I visited Chartes on Good Friday.

After Chartes, I returned to Paris briefly. I couldn’t afford Paris financially, but I also didn’t think I could afford to miss Versailles, the Eiffel Tower and other classic Parisian sites. Ultimately, I did visit Versailles and the Louvre which offered students discounts but decided that I could catch many of the other sites in the future when I might be more financially prepared for Paris. Instead, I headed to Spain which had the reputation as being the most affordable backpacker destination in Western Europe.

Nimes: On my way to Spain from Paris, I stopped in Nimes to visit Roman ruins.