Canterbury, England
Canterbury cathedral where Becket was murdered.
Windmills of Holland.
Marlys and Vlodek in Amsterdam.
The canals.
Their cat keeping my newly purchased punk 45's.
Alkmaar and Vollendam, Holland
Notre Dam Cathedral, Paris
The Atlantic coastline in Portugal...
and the cold rough water.
A local beach side restaurant.
Deb sitting on the wall of a Portugese fortress.
Our backpacks and others, in the bleachers of a soccer stadium.
The coves and beaches of the Algarve.
June 1979
I met Deb through a group of friends and over the next year we had a whirlwind romance. I had been planning to take an around the world trip but this complicated it. So, at a Hallowe'en party I proposed to her dressed as a punk rocker (this was in that day and age). We got married in February 1979 and worked and saved to take the trip together.
We bought six month return tickets (this was the cheapest way to buy tickets and we figured we would abandon the return) to London for $300 each and two Eurail passes and left in June. Since this was my second trip to Europe, but with a different woman, I revisited some places and found new ones as well. We took a tent with us and camped as much as possible to travel as frugally as possible.
We visited all the main record stores in London and spent two hundred pounds on singles and a few albums by all the new punk and new wave bands that were flourishing in Britain, but were unknown yet in North America. We checked the main sites before boarding a train to Canterbury. I loved the film Becket, with Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole and wanted to see the cathedral, which was very impressive and had a plaque where Becket, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury was murdered by the king's men. We took the ferry from Dover to Calais and on to Paris. Then through Belgium to the Netherlands.
I remember we arrived in The Hague on a Sunday and could not cash any travelers cheques (there were no such thing as ATM's!). We found a public bus that had two carriages, and we boarded the rear one on the assumption that we could get on for free. However, a ticket collector got on and we didn't have a ticket. After some hassle, we managed to pay with an assortment of British, French and Belgium coins. He was not impressed. When we got the beautiful city of Amsterdam I remember canals and all the dog droppings on the sidewalks. We stayed with a woman, Marlys, who had put up a friend of mine in years past. Here we could listen to the music we had purchased, before mailing them all home to my friend Tom who put up half the money.
From Amsterdam we went north and visited two little quaint farming villages famous for cheese and dairy products and fish. Next was Paris where by luck walked into an organ recital at Notre Dame Cathedral which was amazing. We traveled through Spain to Madrid and then on to Lisbon and the port town of Cascais where we camped on an incredibly windy beach where our tent almost disappeared and swam in a very rough and cold Atlantic Ocean. From there we took a train to Lagos Algarve on the southern coast of Portugal. The train arrived late and in the dark and there were a large number of backpackers who got off looking for camping. We found a sign and all set off on a long walk to the campground but they wouldn't let us put up our tents in the dark and wake the other campers, so they put us up in a small soccer stadium next door. We all slept in the concrete bleachers and listened to a few dogs that were either fighting or mating in the dark on the field. We stayed on the beaches for a few days soaking up the sun and warm water. continued...
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