Addendum to Northern European Trip: Thoughts From Home

We have sat and read our blog entries and perhaps the last entry, in particular, may have left the reader with some negative impressions about our tour. This addendum is an attempt to clarify our thoughts.

A pervading theme throughout was the sense of history that we in North America do not have to appreciate. We remember looking at some simple nails found in the Klaipeda castle ruins from the 1600s. There are no nails that old here. We also found ourselves thinking a lot of recent history, in particular WW2 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It seems the European people are more aware of this part of their history probably because it was in their “yard”. For many of us it is just something that happened “over there”. Obviously our Auschwitz visit drove this home succinctly. The museum suggests that some of the exhibits may be unsuitable for children. Yet we saw many children there. It is probably something everyone should do in their lifetime and maybe the earlier the better.

It is always of interest to compare the ways of foreign countries to ours. In fact, travel in some ways is an almost constant game of compare and contrast. For example we are big fans of traffic circles (roundabouts) and do not understand why we do not have more of these traffic expediting features at home.

We very much enjoyed meeting the Europeans in their homeland. They are very polite and helpful. Most of our frustration came from not having any command of the language leaving us at the mercy of whatever we met. All of these encounters were ultimately positive but left us feeling lacking in our preparedness for this journey. It also gave us a better understanding of how isolated you can feel when left in a state of decreased communication, even as simply as not being able to understand or read the road signs and menus. 

Living in small town Canada we just are not used to the speed, traffic volume and overall busyness of European roads. After our ride in the Balkans last year we were hoping to not having to deal with such traffic issues, but only in the remoter areas of Scandinavia did we find this the situation.

Scenery? Finland lakes and streams and the Norwegian coast come to mind right away. But there were some beautiful farms and woodlands throughout the trip.

In hindsight we would have benefited by two more rest days to simply “stop and smell the roses”, get a better feel of some of the countries and just regroup.

There was no doubt this was a trip of a lifetime. We had spent the previous winter planning and plotting and trying to prepare for this journey. We are thankful as a 70ish couple we are still mentally and physically capable of taking on such an endeavour.