Your first experience of travelling on your own can be fantastic. But what do you do when things don’t quite go to plan? Hope that the people around you are kind and considerate! You never know quite what can happen on a journey on your own.
Interrail travel is still great value – and provides many budding travellers with their first taste of independent adventure – which it did for me! You think you have planned it all out – but omitted to take full note of possible changes in the train timetable. You’ve just managed to cram in a trip to the Parthenon before heading to Venice, when you discover you have missed the connecting train from Athens. The next through train is a stopper – stopping all the way up through Greece and Yugoslavia and into Italy…so your journey time has been extended by about 20 hours! Sigh!!
Staggering up and down the train corridor, it became clear there were no seats in the ordinary class carriage where you’d normally find a pew to park down on – and an upgrade was pointless, because the conductor couldn’t confirm whether that was possible or not and the armed guard on the train didn’t look like someone to mess with. So, after traipsing through the length of the train, hot and bothered and my back ready to snap, my rucksack got parked in the corridor and I lent against the window for about 5 hours – another 15 hours of leaning was not looking promising. There was a terrific thunder and lightening storm, so above the noise of the train, the light show was spectacular and the thunder seemed to follow us. I love the elements, but by the early hours of the morning, the experience was wearing thin, the loos on the corridor had flooded, and it was very cold.
You can imagine my relief when the door of a train compartment was opened and a stranger beckoned me into the seated area where their family had made camp. They then moved the entire family group around to make room for me! My rucksack was put up on the luggage rack, because I couldn’t lift it that high, and I was able to sleep in safety. They also helped me with my ticket upgrade and bought me a breakfast from the station vendor – hot rolls, a sort of veal kebab. It was real old world hospitality. They were generous, sincere and really made an impression on me.
Having appropriate travel insurance is important but there are still some situations where the thoughtful kindness of others is invaluable!
Whenever I travel now, whether I am in a group, as a couple or on my own, I am much more aware of people around me. You never know when you might spot someone who needs a little bit of help to get their own trip back on track.
