From a rabbi to Robert Kubicka: A hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy (well, Spain, France, Switzerland and Poland) Part Two: Biarritz to somewhere in southern France

I waited just twenty minutes for my next driver but this time he took me just a couple of kilometres up the road. He dropped me at a toll station, which I figured could be a good place to hitch from due to the slow moving traffic I was trying to hail down. Five hours later I began to review this belief. I spoke to several drivers but all seemed to be heading back towards Spain and not Bordeaux, my next destination.

I trudged back to the town centre of Biarritz and bought a train ticket to the aforementioned French city, sleeping all the way.

Once in Bordeaux I managed to access free wifi at the train station and checked out what hitchwiki had to say regarding a good location to hitch from. I made my way there and got picked up by a guy en route. He dropped me outside an amazing bakery.

There I had mixed fortunes. Great food but I waited two hours in drizzling rain. To add to my chagrin, plenty of people pulled over, only to dash both into the bakery and my hopes too.

When I was eventually picked up I was taken 15kms into the direction of Lyon, the destination that at this stage I hoped to reach by sundown (excuse the cowboy terminology). Sadly, I was, naively on my part, dumped on the hard shoulder of the highway. Just seconds later it began to rain… incessantly.

Luckily the downpour lasted less than ten minutes and I managed to find a toll station once more. I never thought the sight of these road payment stations would be so welcome.

I waited less than five minutes for my next lift. An eccentric lady in her early 60s, who had half of Kew Gardens in the back of her car, managed to make enough room for me to squeeze in beside her (steady).

What was pleasantly surprising was her standard of English - extremely high. And she took me almost 60 kms to the next set of toll booths so I was starting to make some headwind with just over 48 hours until kick off in Warsaw.

From a rabbi to Robert Kubicka: A hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy (well, Spain, France, Switzerland and Poland) Part One: Santander to Biarritz

As first experiences go, there was no lack of effort as I attempted to hitch from Santander to Warsaw in three days.

As I left home on Saturday afternoon with my board with the words ‘Bilbao/San Sebastian’ blatantly inscribed on it, little did I know what was in store for me.

Using the website hitchwiki.com, which has plenty of useful suggestions, I headed for a gas station on the way out of my current hometown, Santander, in the direction of the Basque country.

How could I best describe the feeling after the three hours that followed? Forlorn. Dejected. You get the gist of it. I didn’t move one centimetre. In fact, there were ants that had made more progress than I had. And it wasn’t for the lack of trying. I made all sorts of comical gestures as the traffic raced by - imitating flashing lights, pulling faces and a variety of other childish manoeuvres.

After three hours of no success I made my way to the bus station, with a sense of failure, to get a bus to the border, and then try and hitch from there.

I got to the border town of Irun at around midnight and was picked up within an hour for my first official hitchhiking experience. A young lad, about 22, was my driver and, though I speak no French, it soon became apparent he wanted me to drive. Why? I have no idea but maybe you can work it out. I said I didn’t have my license with me and therefore it may be a bit risky to do so. He kept saying ‘Policia’ to me but I have no idea what he meant by that. Was he suspecting me for being a police officer? Did he want me to drive so he couldn’t get caught for something? Or did he somehow know that ‘Message in a bottle’ was number one on the day I was born?

Whatever it was, I was gripped to my seat throughout the 20km journey he took me on to Biarritz due to the scary nature of his driving.

Anyway, we got there in one piece and he dropped me off at the train station and I went in search of my next driver.

Wrocław - Come here!

Why? Because they said so. And when a Pole tells you: ‘Chodz du’, you do it. The tone is unmistakably firm and is in stark contrast to the much more friendly ‘Dzień Dobry’ (good morning/good day) as you enter most shops, bars and restaurants.

In fact, this warm welcome gives you a false sense of security as everything that follows is not repeated in such dulcet tones.

As for 'Chodź tu', no-one is spared. From an errant child to an innocent passer by, never mind dogs. All obey as they dare not confront someone who utters these words.

Even the elderly are warned to ignore it at their peril. Especially the wheelchair ones!

Anyway, I digress, where am I? Ah yes, Wrocław in Poland. Or Breslau as the Germans call it, and they are never slow to remind you that the town used to belong to them before they came second in World War II.

Which brings me nicely to Poland’s favourite topic. Moaning. The Russians are the first to get in the neck, then it’s the Germans. The Ukrainians are not overly popular. Nor are the British or the Spanish.

The Americans are not liked. Why? It all comes down to the visa scenario. Apparently what bothers them most is that our friends from over the pond don’t require a visa to visit Poland, yet it is not reciprocated. Oh well, there’s no pleasing some.

Anyway, I’m not really too sure who the Polish are keen on. Ah yes, the Monty Pythons. They like them.

Thus far, it sounds like I am not painting a particularly nice picture of my Polish experience in Wrocław yet, as the weeks unfolded, I discovered a depth to the locals that was not apparent upon arrival.

The harsh tones of the people of this western Polish city are soon got used to and actually begin to amuse after a while, particularly when being berated in the supermarket for choosing the wrong sized trolley.

In addition, some of the early frustrations with organisation begin to dissipate when you begin to see the funny side.

Take the coffee machine experience, for example:

Me: Does this coffee machine work?

Polish person: Yes... it should...

Typical Polish response.

In Germany they would just say: Yes, of course it does. 

And in the UK they would say: No bloody idea.

Then you factor in the pleasant streets, the overall safety of the town in comparison to other Eastern European cities and you begin to appreciate Wrocław all the more.

Even the trams and buses are pretty reliable. There is one tram, the 32plus, which puzzled me throughout my stay. What was the plus all about? Did you get free vodka on board? No. Were there heated seats to keep you from the Polish cold? No. Was it something even more special? Most definitely not.

Then I thought, what was the regular 32 like? It must feel so inadequate in comparison to its illustrious rival.

Seriously, you can’t just go giving out pluses willy-nilly. These should be prestigious awards.

I do have one other bone of contention, though. No matter how many times I visited football pitches, longing for an invitation to be involved, it was never forthcoming. I guess the Polish are friendly, but not that friendly.

Oh well, at least the women looked good!

The Italian Job: Negotiating trains

One of the benefits of flying from Milan is that it is quite cheap, with many of the low cost airlines flying in and out of its airports.

But the biggest of drawbacks is that you have to negotiate the bizarre nature of the Italian transport system. Typified by this story I had at Milan Garibaldi train station last week.

The first thing I realised was that all the ticket machines had big signs emblazoned across them 'Out of order'.

All, that is, apart from two which were stood next to each other. I thought: 'God. If there are just two functioning machines out of 20 couldn't they have at least spread them out a bit. The previous 18 in a row were all not in working order and then two, adjacent to each other, working just fine. Ridiculous.'

Anyway, that was to prove the least of my problems.

So there we are: myself and a group of strangers that were soon to become close friends due to having the same predicament on the horizon.

Stood, looking at the ten metre long screen with the pending trains, their expected times and the platforms already assigned, a typically Italian story was about to unfold.

See, the trouble began when it became apparent that the train we all wanted, to Malpensa Airport, didn’t have an assigned platform.

Anyway, no problem, I thought. It’s 22:30 and there is still a full eight minutes until the train to Malpensa departs. Surely the platform number will come up shortly. I mean, the train to Centrale has a platform, so does the one to Turin. And the one to another part of Northern Italy, it had its number assigned nearly half an hour ago.

But no one seemed to be going anywhere else. We were the only people at the station in this suburb of Milan at this late hour. The Milanese were all probably using taxis.

22:30, soon became 22:35 and still no platform. Then 22:37. I could hear a train in the distance but was it the one I wanted? Was it the one my newly acquired 15 friends all wanted, many of which were Italians and looking as puzzled as I was?

Some, thinking they were being smart, began to shuffle in the direction of platforms where they could hear noises that seemed like trains but turned out to be nothing more than the snoring of local tramps. They would do this but they'd remain within eyeshot of the big screen, as if they didn't trust their own senses.

Then, suddenly, as the clock struck 22:38, up it came: platform 13.

A mad rush ensued as we had less than half a minute to run from one side of the station to another. We ran, luggage trailing in our wake, towards the platform that just seconds earlier, was unbeknown to any of us.

Some of them, understandably, didn’t make it. The Asians, who always seem to have more luggage than everyone else put together, didn’t make it. The Italians did, but they lost a handbag or two en route. I made it but was sweating like a pig in a sauna once on the train.

The passengers already on board looked a little flustered too but I guess they had had the same experience at the previous station.

Benvenuto in Italia.

Istanbul - where the streets have no name

Istanbul is probably one of the best cities in Europe. There I've said it. No hanging around. No quibbling. Never again can I be accused of sitting on the fence.

Nevertheless, even possible greatness has to be undermined by something and the city formerly known as Constantinople succumbs to such occurrences.

So let's get them out of the way now. Firstly, quality does come at a price, especially if you want to eat by the water. Not quite on the same level as a Moscow or a Tokyo but, still, on occasion, you will have an expensive bill manipulated by mischievous waiters.

Furthermore, Istanbul is full of 'Del Boy' characters shouting out how great their product is and encouraging you to dig deeper into an already severely dented wallet. Sadly, these people are not selling faulty watches but are dragging, sometimes literally, people into their eatery with what turn out to be false promises.

OK, so that's the negatives so let's get on with the positives. The place is beautiful, almost serene at times, particularly in summer as the sun glistens on the Bosphorus, Istanbul's famous river that separates Europe from Asia. By all means take a tour on a boat for an hour or two as it is relatively inexpensive and a great way to see more of the city.

The fact that the most of there streets appear to be nameless will soon be forgotten as you wander the streets. Once you've settled on your restaurant, you will not be disappointed, especially if you chose a rooftop location where you can eat, drink, smoke a shisha and enjoy the star-lit sky (n.b. always ask for a free bowl of fruit and you'll almost certainly get it).

Something that will not escape your attention during your visit will be the occasional drone of noise coming from the mosques, presumably at prayer time. However, I found the sound created a strangely mixed feeling - one of enchantment and of being disturbed.

Nevertheless, once inside a mosque, you will delight in its splendour. It put me in a state of extreme relaxation, so much so I eventually snoozed off, prostrate. When awoken by a security guard I was told I must make a quick exit. When I suggested I was not the only person asleep and queried why they were not being subjected to the same punishment I was informed they were praying. Damn! Why didn't I think of that first?