When we travel again….

I am a travel agent manquée. I enjoy researching destinations and means of travel, places to visit, places to stay. (When it comes to the latter, warmth of welcome and a comfortable bed top my list of 'must-haves'). 
My first foreign trip was in the late 1960s when, with three female friends from University, I travelled to Greece - hitch-hiking, except for a sea journey from Bari in Italy to Patras. I remember little about the outward journey, except for being sea-sick on the stormy sea-crossing. We abandoned a plan to visit the island of Cephalonia (I can't remember why) and hitch-hiked instead to Athens, staying several days in Arachova en route to visit unforgettable Delphi. We slept on the roof of a basic, but friendly, house that offered beds, but not rooms. 
There was music everywehere in Athens. It blasted from speakers in every square. I heard the bouzouki for the first time, and learned the words (in Greek) of a song by the composer, Mikis Theodorakis. I had my first taste of Greek yoghurt for breakfast -  the spoon piercing the light ,sugar-sprinkled, skin on the surface,  the sour creaminess of it. I heard Gina Bachauer and Hepzibah Menuhin play Mozart's double piano concerto in the Herodes Atticus theatre, as part of the Athens Festival. Queen Frederica sat in the front row. She was widely unpopular because of her German ancestry. We - ticketless - climbed up above the theatre and listened from a great height, with occasional glimpses into the arena. The sky was lit with stars. Music filled the air. It was magical and memorable.
A year later, the democratic government was overthrown by a right-wing group of army colonels, known as the Greek Junta. They imprisoned Theodorakis and banned his songs.
With one of our group, I hitch-hiked from Athens to Amsterdam - via Germany, because we had met a Turkish girl who was travelling alone and wanted company hitchhiking to Hanover. We felt protective of her, until we learned she belonged to a sky-diving team. She was fun, and I'm sorry we lost touch.
I went to my first open-air cinema in Munich. I remember my first experience of the billowing softness of a duvet, in a small roadside hotel in Germany. And eating wurst and sauerkraut at service stations on the autobahns.
We travelled with our Turkish friend as far as Dusseldorf where she found a lift to Hanover.  My friend and I got a lift all the way to Amsterdam, comfortably squashed into a small car with four friendly Dutch students. We had run out of money. I telephoned home - not a simple matter. I had to queue for a booked call from a designated booth in the main Post Office in Amsterdam. When my father went to the bank in Cookstown to send money to me, he might as well have asked it to send money to the moon. The cashiers had never previously dealt with such a request.  It took a couple of days to process. A kindly cashier in the Dutch bank, realising we had no money for a hostel, invited us to stay in his family home. Such is the kindness of strangers. 
Teenage travellers today are in constant touch with family and friends on social media, sending photos. They are less likely to lose touch with friends they meet on their travels. It was a different world back then. In all the weeks I was away, my parents had received, at most, a couple of postcards. I don't have any photographs from that holiday. I don't think any of us had a camera. 
But I have the memories. And I acquired a taste for travel that has never left me.