Through or straight to?
The merits of travelling Europe post-Brexit as a conspicuous tourist versus the merits of blending in with the crowd.
Abby and Michael at Mini-Europe (photo credit: Abby Hallett)
AH: I’ve always loved travel, seeing the world, getting to know unfamiliar places, but most importantly (to me at least), I love travelling through. I like being able to see the unexpected and throw myself headfirst into a country, in the words of the cliché, travelling off the beaten track. In my opinion, it’s what can lead to some of the most special and memorable experiences of a trip.
MW: I enjoy travelling too: but in terms of getting there, I’m lazy. For me, the idea of a road trip is not appealing in the slightest. I either like to fly to a destination, drop my suitcase off at the hotel, and then go to as many things in as small an area as possible, or go cruising, combining several different places with the familiarity of the five-star floating hotel nearby. I think this has a lot to do with our different experiences of travel growing up though.
Michael at Mini-Europe in line with his political opinions (photo credit: Abby Hallett)
AH: That’s actually what makes it so fun to go on holiday together, because our ideas of travelling and going on holiday are so different. Our first trip together was to Belgium last December and that style of holiday was very much my idea of what it is to travel. Michael had caught the travel bug over that summer and had suggested that we go to Brussels together, since he had seen Mini-Europe on Travel Man and he knew that I loved model villages and the EU.
Nevertheless, despite Michael being the one who suggested the trip, I will admit that I took the reins and planned a lot of it, suggesting that we take the Eurostar rather than flying and stay in a hostel rather than a hotel. In my mind, I definitely had a vision of us interacting with the city like locals, especially as I can speak a moderate amount of French, and exploring the less well-known parts of the city. On the other hand, Michael had envisioned going to the main attractions to say that he had done them, and that was all he felt he needed to do in the city.
Abby and Michael at Mini-Europe with the Atomium in the Background (photo credit: Abby Hallett)
MW: It was very good fun yes. Abby taking charge was fine with me: again, it meant I could be lazy and that I could just go with the flow. Often, I get my travel ideas from watching celebrity travelogues on telly or reading travel books, and when I plan to go to a place, I fastidiously research and plan all the places I want to go. For example, when I went to Berlin on my first solo trip abroad, I had planned my itinerary day-by-day and even my routes around, rarely deviating from this. I don’t like not knowing what I’m going to do and wasting time when I’m travelling, but I also very much enjoy spending time relaxing, which will bring us onto our second trip together later.
AH: I think one of my favourite moments from our trip to Brussels was when we popped into a souvenir shop on the morning of our departure. We walked in and I greeted the cashier in French, before we started talking in English, making our way around the tiny shop and made jokes about Michael buying a British flag, but when I went to pay, the cashier once again greeted me in French and we underwent our transaction in the same fashion. I assumed that she either couldn’t speak English or would prefer not to and I was perfectly happy with that. However, when Michael went up to pay for his souvenirs, she immediately greeted him in English-
MW: To be fair… to myself, as well as the fact that I was buying a British flag and Abby was buying a European one, I also speak quite loudly with quite a strong British accent, so that most likely was a factor in that assumption too.
From left to right: Michael outside the EU Parliament Building. He wants us to note that the smile is forced (photo credit: Abby Hallett). Abby outside the EU Parliament Building. Her smile, on the other hand, is genuine (photo credit: Michael Watts)
AH: Definitely, but in fairness I had also been speaking English quite loudly and I was clearly travelling with you. But anyway, it was in this moment that I realised that our two modes of travelling, despite how incompatible they might seem at a surface level, were actually far easier to intermix than I’d previously imagined. I could content myself with not sticking out as a tourist, whilst Michael could do exactly that.
MW: Exactly. In a way I enjoyed being with someone seeking to pass themselves off as Belgian, because it made certain communications much easier – I let Abby take the lead. It was much the same when we went to Hamburg. I let Abby guide us round the city and take us to the best places. However, the way we got there was very much my sort of thing. Abby joined me on a four-night cruise on the Queen Mary 2 from Southampton to Hamburg and back after the person I was travelling with could no longer come. I’d booked the trip specifically because of the traditional luxury atmosphere of the boat and because the two days at sea gave us plenty of time to enjoy this. I love the experience of cruising because it allows me to combine holidaying with travelling, and gives greater certainty of the quality of food, entertainment and lodgings. It’s low-risk and lazy, which is exactly what I like.
AH: I will admit I’ve been on a few cruises before, mostly at my grandparents’ impetus, so I knew what to expect and with that came the fact that I well and truly hate sea days. My style of travel stems from the fact that I hate being stood still in one place for too long; I itch to move around and get out in the fresh air, and as much as there is fresh air at sea, there certainly aren’t many places to move to. I was especially apprehensive, since not only would there be two sea days, but also we would spend the majority of our first day of the trip aboard the ship with few activities running as we waited for our fellow passengers to board.
Michael (and Abby's hand) at dinner on the QM2 (photo credit: Abby Hallett)
MW: I’ve been several times before too, with my Nan, and I love the sea days – a big favourite of mine is the line-dancing classes they put on – but I get that they’re not for everyone. We did manage to keep ourselves occupied on them though, even managing to win a bottle of (very intriguing tasting) wine on one of the quizzes. We did of course end up spending even more time on the boat than expected: a severe storm meant we couldn’t enter the River Elbe, which itself takes seven hours to cruise down, so we spent the night at its entrance. The storm then dredged up an unexploded bomb from the war, meaning our arrival in Hamburg was further delayed. However, overall, again we managed to successfully fuse our two travel styles: Abby got me doing more than I would have done when we were on the boat, whilst I still got my relaxed holiday.
AH: You can probably tell that I still wasn’t a very big fan of those sea days though. Nevertheless, we did make it to Hamburg, but we only had two hours to do everything that we wanted to do, so we had to discard a lot of our carefully planned itinerary and go with the flow far more. We started off at Michael’s choice of attraction: St.-Nikolai-Kirche, which was one of the Hauptkirchen of the city before it was bombed heavily during the Second World War. The remains of the church now stand as a memorial to all victims of war across the globe, whilst a museum underneath it details the history of the church and the Hamburg Bombing Raids. The site was a profound place to visit and very moving to see how the church had changed from site of religious worship to one of pure remembrance. I’m very glad that Michael’s detailed plans for the city beforehand had flagged this site as a place that we ought to visit.
MW: It was especially moving and poignant for me, as my great-grandfather likely took part in the raids as a navigator on the Lancaster Bomber, with me only considering the connection when we actually got there. From there, following Abby’s more relaxed exploratory lead, we meandered through the Hanseatic Quarter and the Speicherstadt. We spotted Elbphilharmonie, which went straight in at number one as my favourite building to have visited, and thanks to Abby’s impromptu research, discovered that we could actually go inside for free (up a curved escalator I might add) and get a great panoramic view of the city from the balcony. Our experience in the giftshop again exemplified the difference between our styles of travel and our experiences when abroad together. Abby went to the till first to buy postcards and carried out their transaction entirely in German, getting away with appearing not to be British. I then come along, buying a glass model of the building, very loudly asking for a translation, and exposing Abby as a fellow Brit abroad.
AH: I think our experiences in Hamburg were definitely another way for us to each become more comfortable with the other’s respective style of travel! I’m still a little wary of seeming like a Brit abroad, but I’m certainly less anxious about it. There are definitely merits in travelling directly to the sites you want to see rather than just meandering your way through places, otherwise I certainly would have missed St-Nikolai-Kirche.
MW: On the other hand, whilst I still firmly want to make sure everyone can tell I’m British when in Europe, I now see the merits of wanting to blend in and understand more why someone with a more European identity like Abby, shaped by their experiences growing up, would want to do this. Whether this line will hold when Abby has been to Center Parcs with me and some of our friends in a few months’ time is still up for debate.
From left to right: Michael at Elbphilarmonie (photo credit: Abby Hallett), Abby in the Hanseatic Quarter (photo credit: Michael Watts)