Friday 18 February 2011

on the road.

"Then came spring, the great time of travelling, and everybody in the scattered gang was getting ready to take one trip or another. I was busily at work on my novel and when I came to the halfway mark, after a trip down South with my aunt to visit my brother Rocco, I got ready to travel West for the very first time... And this was really the way my whole road experience began, and the things that were to come are too fantastic not to tell."

Jack Kerouac - On the Road, 1951


Unlike Kerouac's, my journey first takes me East... to the oriental part of the European continent. Like his though, I am hoping the experience will be filled of experiences too fantastic not to be told. It is currently 1.30am and I am due to take off at c. 7am for Milan, Italy. First hint... that will be one flight out of only two I will take in the coming 3 weeks. For this trip, I will use a rather more old-fashioned and conventional means of transportation. You guessed it right, that British invention which was amongst many other factors one of the backbones of the Industrial Revolution in the isles - audience, meet train... train, meet audience. Although the Interrail initiative began in 1972, one can argue that it did not really take off as a trip alternative until the mid/late 1980's with the increasing political and economic integration of Europe, mostly Western up to that point. To me, the Interrail (http://www.interrailnet.com/) became know back when I was about 16. I remember I was in my penultimate year of high school and some friends from my class got themselves a "rail pass" which would enable them to travel on an unlimited number of trains during a total of three weeks across a number of European countries. They opted for France and Benelux. I never actually got to go on one of these trips, as back in the day my summers (a whopping 10 weeks in total) would be entirely devoted to that place called Camp Otterdale, in Ontario, Canada, that I so fondly remember. What a place that was... Nevertheless, that calls for another story, so back to the point. My choice has been Eastern Europe. Starting in Milan, over to Venice, crossing the border to Slovenia (with a must stop in Trieste... Mr. Gray if you are reading this out there, thanks for making me remember Orlando and the Treaty of Rapallo of 1920 - what a great History teacher that guy was!), down to Croatia, a tour of the Balkans (ex Albania), over to Bulgaria and Romania, up towards Hungary and Slovakia, pit stop in Vienna (which by the way is so close to Bratislava, that these are the two national capitals which are closest together - http://vienna-bratislava.blogspot.com/2005/11/closest-capital-cities.html), and finish in Poland... after what I am hoping will be a thrilling 3 weeks of memorable moments, unforgettable experiences and tonnes (!) of pictures, some of which I will share with you periodically.

As a sneak peak, below is a picture of my packing "process". No worries though, I am not packing live at 2am. Please note the slight lag in uploading the audiovisual material. ;)

That's all for now folks. Stay tuned for more updates.

Ciao bella Italia!

pv