The European Tour

My college friend Barbara and I took off to Europe two years after college graduation, in early summer 1968. By then I had moved from New Jersey to Boston but we reunited for the trip. This was my last fling before entering Boston College Law School in the fall.

We bought one-way tickets to Amsterdam and checked into a youth hostel on the bank of a canal. We made sure to visit the Anne Frank House, toured the Rijksmuseum with its Rembrandts, Vermeers, and Van Goghs, walked around the famous red-light district in the daytime, enjoyed the aroma of marijuana (but did not partake) at the coffee shops where our peers gathered to meet other student travelers and global adventurers.

Not having a ticket home—or even to our next destination—qualified us as adventurers too.

One week in Amsterdam seemed to be enough. We treated ourselves to a Rijstaffel (Indonesian rice table) buffet at an expensive restaurant to develop inspiration for the next country of choice. We decided to leave for Switzerland for its expansive mountain views and fresh air recreation.

We stopped in at a storefront travel agent and found a cheap flight to Zurich. We used it as our home base for hiking the lower Alpine hills. Air and land travel was a bit more formal at the time and we mostly wore skirts and summer dresses, even for hiking between the picturesque towns on the hills and in the valleys. Travelers didn’t wear sneakers, t-shirts, shorts or jeans in European cities just yet.

Zurich itself, more of a business-oriented city — banks, of course — did not have the attraction of Amsterdam with its predominance of young people sharing information and downtime with each other. It was time to move on, again. Over breakfast, one of us said, ‘Why don’t we go to Athens?’ The other agreed with enthusiasm.

We booked tickets on Olympic Airways, the flagship airline of Greece. I remember stepping off the plane into the blazing sun, the air saturated with stifling humidity. We boarded a bus into the city and found a small hotel on a side street with a view from our bedroom window of the Parthenon rising on the Acropolis.

Next day, Barbara and I climbed the Acropolis for a tour of the Parthenon, a dream of mine after studying world civilization and art history in college. Walking through the ancient ruins, I felt the rapture of stepping on the same ground as the ancient Greeks, perhaps to run into Socrates for a chance at some dialogue. In high school, I had subscribed to the quarterly hardcover publication Greek Heritage and had read Greek drama and comedy on my own. I felt like I belonged here, at least for a pilgrimage.

The sun beat down mercilessly on us and our fellow tourists. Afterwards, at the base of the hill, we bought glass after glass of fresh orange juice for fifty cents each. The refreshment was glorious and likely prevented us from collapsing from dehydration.

In our travels around the city and its ancient sights, bazaars, and cafes with Turkish coffee and baklava, we ran into two friendly Greek guys, Nick and Themis (short for Themistocles, a populist politician and prestigious general in classical times).

We hung around with them daily, sunning and swimming at Vouliagmeni Beach, sipping Ouzo on ice, eating plates of fried squid for lunch, platters of moussaka for dinner.

I was taller than Themis and not interested in him, not just for that reason. I had already met Paul, a hairdresser in Boston, as verified by my signature short haircut in these photographs. I was satisfied to be Themis’ friend and he didn’t push it. His buddy Nick was handsome as hell but didn’t speak a word of English (why should he?). Themis spoke English quite well and served as translator for the group.

Barbara and Nick fell in love at first sight.

During our daily jaunts, they held hands and looked into each other’s eyes constantly, longingly, deeply, in the absence of common words. Themis served as their interpreter, as needed, which was not too often, as their love language of looking and touching sufficed.

In a way, I was the ‘fourth wheel,’ not privy to the interpreted three-way conversations. But that didn’t really matter. Our time in Athens was turning into an amazing adventure.

We had booked a five day cruise (Kentavros Line) to the Greek islands with an aggressive tour guide who honed in on us, two young female tourists, on the bus from the airport. After a few anxious days of doubt about our purchase, it proved to be legitimate when we were granted entry onto the boat.

Our tiny stateroom, below deck with one porthole window, was crammed with four bunks. I don’t remember where our two female roommates were from but they mostly slept in, recovering from their jet lag and emerging at night ready for their Ouzo cocktail, whereas we joined every shore tour.

The royal blue velvet surface of the Aegean against the bright blue skies astounded us. I don’t recall the sequence of the voyage, but the islands we visited are each vivid in my memory.

We first stopped in Crete, with its silent archaeological ruins baking in the sun for millennia. Then, Santorini, where we rode donkeys up the zigzagging paths on the side of the cliff face to reach the top for refreshment and views. Mykonos, populated with whitewashed residences and hotels, a lively tourist destination with restaurants, luxury yachts docked in the harbors, and vibrant nightlife. Delos, close by to Mykonos, home of the Terrace of the Lions, five out of the original sixteen stone figures remaining, having stood silent guard for thousands of years.

On Rhodes, we stood on the shore to take in the far horizon of the blue Aegean. Many of the domes of the Greek Orthodox churches were painted a blue that matched the skies or the waters, depending on the slant of the sun.

We dropped anchor at a market in Kusadasi, a beach resort town on Turkey’s western Aegean coast. I successfully negotiated for a dark green suede skirt and jacket with finely crafted leather buttons and some decorative swatches of embroidered material. But the fez was borrowed for the photo.

When we returned to port in Athens, Themis and Nick were waiting for us.

The star-struck lovers continued their wordless romance for another week until we finally booked our flight home and checked out of the hotel. They kindly drove us to the airport and we posed for group photos. I had tanned to a golden berry brown under the Grecian sun reflecting off the sand and water, but my raven-haired friend retained her pale tone. Her adventure was over as she and Nick could not manage a correspondence without Themis willing to serve as go-between. That didn’t happen.

Barbara and I also parted ways and didn’t see each other again until our fortieth college reunion in 2006. On the chance that she would be there, I brought the photo album of our European tour. The trip had been a surprisingly exciting experience for both of us, a carefree break before we launched into the serious business of adulthood. I moved on to become an attorney and raise four children. Barbara earned a doctoral degree in education and became a pro tennis instructor.

But I had my own side adventure unbeknownst to her. I had met a handsome African-American poet, Lee Bridges, an expat living in Amsterdam. He asked me to call on him if ever I came to Paris. I kept the scrap of paper with his Left Bank address.

A year later, when my grandfather, recently widowed, invited me to accompany him to Paris to visit my grandmother’s family, I slipped the scrap of paper into my passport folder—but that’s another story.

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For the sequel to the meeting with Lee, see the section entitled Monumental Trip to Paris #1 in my earlier piece Is this Paris?