Last week, sitting down to a traditional fried breakfast in an early-19th-century steel master’s mansion in England’s Ironbridge Gorge (birthplace of the Industrial Revolution), I reviewed ways people had spiced up and given meaning to my travels in the past month.
Collin, who ran the B&B I was enjoying, topped up my coffee and showed me a photo of an industrial wasteland with his stately brick home standing like some weary war survivor in its midst. Today, his delightful house stands in a lush river valley welcoming guests like pilgrims to the place where iron was first produced in the modern way. As his wife, Sara, brought my toast on a rack, I asked about the marmite. She explained to me what the beef-yeast spread was, and that “even the adverts admit you either love it or hate it.”
A few days before that in Paris, under dangling lamps and a heavy subterranean stone vault a block from the Louvre, I spent a tasty and fascinating two hours with Olivier, a passionate young sommelier. He makes his living explaining the fine points of French wine to travelers. Between the pouring and sipping, he shared the basics with random insights: “Riesling works well both in the Alsace and in Russia. A French Alsatian vintner was offered big money to make wine in Russia. He refused, saying, ‘Here, I have the privilege of being from somewhere.'”
A few days before that, in Finland, a man sat naked next to me beating himself with birch twigs while explaining the importance of opening the pores, stimulating circulation, letting out toxins, and relaxing in a place “where there are no bosses and all are equal.”
A week before that, I met Marianne from Berlin, who’d been hiking alone across Spain on the ancient pilgrims’ Way of Saint James. With her floppy backpack dangling carelessly from her tiny frame and backlit goldilocks, she talked with a pilgrim’s philosophy as if singing children’s rhymes. She spoke as if she were a real saint come to earth. Talking with her, I felt like I had just entered a Botticelli painting.
And, packing up after that Ironbridge Gorge breakfast, I was heading west…knowing that, in a couple of hours, I’d cross another border, where I just knew someone would tell me why in heaven they speak Welsh.
If there’s one thing that keeps me enthusiastic about traveling in Europe and teaching European travel, it’s the beauty of connecting people with people. Maybe it sounds trite. But that fact can’t be over-emphasized. If you’re not connecting with people in your travels, you’re missing out.
Connecting with people is one of the reasons you might consider traveling independently. It depends upon where you are going of course but certainly in countries where English is the first or second language, consider traveling independent of groups. When you are with a group, you are in a bit of a bubble surrounded by people who are similar and the temptation is not to reach out to locals but to remain in your comfort zone even to the point of being insular.
My husband and I traveled for about 8 years with two other couples, and then we decided a few years ago to go out on our own (schedules conflicted) and it has been the best thing. Like the last person said with others you are in a bubble and I think your group justs seem unaprochable to others, we have met so many great locals in our last few trips and learned so much more. And it is fun for us to break off from our life here and be completely out on our own.
Am I the only one who doesn't go to Europe to meet the people? (Sorry, Rick.) I go for the art,the architecture, the history, and the beauty of the landscape.
Lee – I'm sure you are not – however you are all missing out on the best part. We have had some wonderful experiences while in Europe connecting with the locals that stay with me longer than the viewing of museum pieces and landmarks. You can see those again in your pictures – But how many people have had their own personal tour guide for the afternoon in Mid Ireland, disguised as a Nun? We still talk about that afternoon and how lucky we were that she came along and helped us. She took us around and introduced us like we were long lost friends. I'll never forget that…
Stella-You are so right! I met a Londoner in Israel years ago who became my pen pal. He invited a friend and I to London, picked us up at Gatwick and took us with his church group to Canterbury one day and to Windsor the next. He was so knowledgeable in English history that I could have listened to him all day. What a joy! Meeting locals is the cherry on the top of any of my trips. Carole
Sorry, Stella and Carole Kading, but those kinds of experiences don't appeal to me in the least. Having to relate to strangers for hours at a time? No, thanks. It would just distract from what I'm really passionate about.
I tend to agree with Lee. If one is really desparate to meet the locals, just chat with your waiter, the hotel staff, whoever is nearby. I once had a very interesting experience just eavesdropping on a teacher of orchestral conducting talking about his subject to three of his students sitting near me on a train in Germany. On the other hand, a lifelong friendship began with a chance encounter, a conversation about the book I was reading, in a hotel lobby in Berlin.