/Travel Mode Within Europe

During the 26 years between 1970 and 1995 we drove six different Recreation Vehicles (RV) a total of 87,000 miles, and crossed the International boundaries between 28 countries, 227 times, with very few problems. That includes multiple visits to Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and East Germany, when they were still “Behind the Iron Curtain.” Vehicle maintenance and parts (especially for the two Dodge trucks) may have been nearly non-existence in those countries. Only the VW Van in 1970 was new, the others were used, with as much as 60,000 miles on the speedometer.

Any problem, of any kind, was either solved or forgotten with little or no inconvenience for our travels. Two of the vehicles, driven two years each, were Dodge Vans, made in the USA. Only once did we see a dealer sign that said “DODGE.”

The RV was our hotel, restaurant and rental car while we were on the road, and except for a few days when we rented a car, it functioned as our rental car when we stayed with Emmy’s cousins.

Except for our first trip when our VW Van was waiting at the Frankfurt airport, we rented a car for a few days or a week while we arranged for the RV. In 1985 we drove the RV to Rotterdam and boarded a ship for Monteral, otherwise we would rent a car after we disposed of the RV, at the end of the trip. We drove those rental vehicles 300 to 2,500 miles each (a total of 10,000 to 15,000 miles), again with no mechanical problems, no accidents, not even a scratch or a scrape.

In addition, we drove cars borrowed from Emmy’s cousins, we rode with the cousins in their cars, and we rode in cars with other people, additional hundreds, or even thousands of miles.

About 75 to 80 times we “sailed” on a ferry or cruise ship that sailed from, or arrived at dozens of ports in 17 countries. Three times we sailed on over-night ferry boats, and three times on cruise ships — four nights to the Greeks Islands, seven nights to Istanbul and the Black Sea, and ten nights from Rotterdam, The Netherlands, to Montreal, Canada.

We made 15 to 20 short trips on a train, in four or five countries. Most likely no trip exceeded 150 miles, most were shorter. We rode in taxies, subways (in a dozen cities), streetcars, and city busses, dozens of times, more times than we could count, and in a tour bus, maybe three or four times.