Can you remember how you travelled to the continent pre 73?

We were taken to the border but not the wall, on our German exchange trip. It was a bit scary fairly close up, seeing the soldiers with rifles in their ‘goon boxes’, ready to shoot anyone trying to escape.

I went to Europe with the school and under 16s didn't need a passport. We all went on a group passport. That would have been 1972.

Even in the early 80s a full passport wasn't necessary to go to France. We did day trips with our DC from Folkstone.

*Surely not in the 70’s!

Back in the 50’s there was a limit but I have no recollection of stating any amount when I went to France and Germany to au pair or to Switzerland to study in the 60’s*

There was certainly a limit to the amount anyone could take out in sterling(£50?). and amounts were written in passports because I used to write it in as a cashier in a bank. Everyone took travellers cheques and currency. ATM machine were only just starting.

My grandparents were just factory workers and the went to Europe and North Africa at least twice a year from the late fifties to 1971/72. They started because grandad wanted to take grandma to the places he served in WW2. Their children were grown up and they weren't involved much with us GC. They saw it as making up for the years they were apart.

I didn't leave Britain until 1983. We couldn't afford it.

When in Greece we could walk inside the monuments whereas nowadays they are fenced off.

I went on a German exchange in 1964, we went by train, ferry and coach. the crossing was very stormy and I have memories of people being sick overboard. Part of the visit was going to West Berlin which was then in the days of The Wall. Had to cross the border with very young border guards making eyes at us teenagers in miniskirts. Still have vivid memories of the impression that made. Have visited Berlin since. A great city.

MissChateline I had a similar experience. My father was in the army and I was at university, so I did all my travelling on my own and by public transport. Train from Newcastle to London, then, when we lived in Belgium, tube to Victoria for journeys from Dover, usually to Ostende and then train to Brussels where my parents would meet me. When we moved to Germany it was tube to Liverpool Street, overnight on the Harwich-Hook of Holland ferry, where overnight accommodation was sold per berth in large cabins that slept about 8 and train to Dusseldorf.

Before that my parents had been in Malaya and my sister and I were taken to London Airport by relations and once booked in and through the departure lounge doors we were on our own for the rest of the journey, nominally in charge of a stewardess, but as we were in our teens left to our own devices because there were so many younger children to look after.

Once the plane broke down at Teheran and we had to stay overnight in a hotel. As I got into the transfer vehicle, I was goosed by one of the porters, something I had never experienced before. I obviously looked surprised, because a male member of the air crew sitting behind me noticed it and lent forward and whispered in my ear. 'If anyone does that to you again knee him in the b*lls'.

To get onto the ferry at Dover there was a narrow set of steps which meant carrying luggage in front and behind you. Awkward.
The boats were wooden, basic, not sure if there was seating downstairs but there were a few deckchairs placed around the deck which had gratis written across them but I didn’t understand that meant free so I sat down on the wooden deck, while someone played a guitar and we all sang Hava Nagila and other similar songs. New to me so it was all exciting.
It was 1963, I had just had my 15th birthday and was travelling alone from London with changes at Dover and Cologne and onwards visiting an unknown aunt and uncle for an extended visit. Neither spoke English. I learned a lot and had a wonderful time, they were so kind.
Following year a friend and I went by train, ferry and coach to Lido de Jesolo travelling through the night. A long and tiring journey, 10 days in Lido cost £20 inc meals ( 5 weeks pay at the time so not cheap ). It was on that holiday that I first saw Venice. Still a favourite after so many years.
Once Freddie Laker etc arrived on the holiday scene we flew but up to then it was hitch, bus, coach, train and ferry or car of course, if you had one.

We used to drive to the continent using the car ferry. There was a £50 limit but, we could use cheques. We had cheque guarantee cards and often called into a local bank to get the appropriate currency. Before we had the cheque guarantee cards we had to ask our own bank to ‘make an arrangement’ for cashing cheques with the local bank. We even did that when we travelled to other places in the U.K. it saved the bank in the holiday town having to ring our own bank to ensure the cheque would be cleared.

MayBee
Were the cigarettes Gitanes? I loved those. I thought I was so chic when I brought them back to the uk.

My first trip abroad was in 1954. I was 3 years old so don't remember much of it. My brother and I were in the back of dad's little Ford Van, no seat belts! ?
We were visiting my grandparents in Italy so we travelled down to Dover and caught the ferry then dad drove through France and Switzerland then into Italy. We slept in the van I recall.
My main memory is of me and my Italian cousin feeding chickens. Coming from inner city Birmingham I'd not seen a live chicken before.
We made the trip quite a few times after that and when I married my half Belgian husband, we also included Belgium on our trips abroad.
I do remember the limit on currency but it wasn't a bother really. Joining the EU didn't make any difference to us to be honest.

Nannee49

My first ever trip abroad was my honeymoon to Lido di Jesolo in 1971. Flying out of Manchester Ringway I felt like I was in a Peter Stuyvesant world of sophistication with a Bert Kampfert soundtrack (even tho I was a soul girl through and through). I will never forget the heat and scent of the night air as we stepped out of the plane. First taste of pizza, of lasagne so commonplace now but absolutely new and strange and delicious. And the first sight of Venice! We'd gone on the ubiquitous trip recommended by the "rep" but it really was worth every penny and as golden afternoon turned to night the lights of San Marco gleamed, the orchestra at Florian's played the theme from the Godfather and everywhere the rainbow twinkle of light up yo-yos sold by the street vendors! Absolutely sublime!

We used to drive round Europe each summer during our student days and used to camp at Lido di Jesolo when visiting Venice. I do remember there being lots of mosquitoes! We got stuck in Paris one time because it was a bank holiday and we’d ran out of money so we couldn’t travel across the channel. We had all our different currencies in little wallets and used travellers cheques. We camped, slept in the car and lived on packet soup, duty free cigarettes and cheap local wine.

Oh thank you oopsminty...that's made my day

Nannee49

My first ever trip abroad was my honeymoon to Lido di Jesolo in 1971. Flying out of Manchester Ringway I felt like I was in a Peter Stuyvesant world of sophistication with a Bert Kampfert soundtrack (even tho I was a soul girl through and through). I will never forget the heat and scent of the night air as we stepped out of the plane. First taste of pizza, of lasagne so commonplace now but absolutely new and strange and delicious. And the first sight of Venice! We'd gone on the ubiquitous trip recommended by the "rep" but it really was worth every penny and as golden afternoon turned to night the lights of San Marco gleamed, the orchestra at Florian's played the theme from the Godfather and everywhere the rainbow twinkle of light up yo-yos sold by the street vendors! Absolutely sublime!

Beautiful description!

I've just re-read my previous post and noticed a really silly slip!
"train to Calais Dover; ferry to Ostende".

When I was 12 my parents announced out of the blue that we were off to Belgium on holiday. Quite a turn up for a working class family who always went to Blackpool or Morecambe. We flew from our tiny local airport, but my only memory of the journey is of checking in our luggage over the sort of table my dad pasted wallpaper on. While we were there we had day trips to Dunkirk and Holland by coach, and I do remember the thrill of crossing the borders.

Trip two when I was 15 was to Paris to study at the Sorbonne, all very exciting but I don’t even remember the journey other than being chatted up on the train soon after leaving home - I’m guessing we went by ferry.

And trip three was to Leningrad in 1973 for a whole month. Again a study trip, again by plane, stopping off for a night in Warsaw first. The second leg was on an Aeroflot plane that had seen better days and did a lot of juddering and rattling. On arrival we were interviewed individually by stern looking officials in uniform. They broke into smiles and shook my hand on hearing my dad was a miner. My friend was interrogated for ages about what hers did when she said he worked for the government. He was a wages clerk at our local town hall.

The two study trips were fully funded by grants from my local authority. How times have changed and how lucky I was.

How you travelled
I went by train and ferry.
In fact I was 19 or 20 before I went on a plane

My first trip abroad was a skiing holiday in Norway in 1961, we sailed from the Tyne to Oslo.
I did not go abroad again until the 70s and that was by boat from Harwich to the Hook of Holland and then by train to Hamburg.
From 1990 we went to France once or twice a year and we used the hovercraft, brillint way to travel.
I remember being restricted in how much money you take.

I remember being on a plane aged 4. Although I wasn't terrified, I didn't like it even then. Now I've got a full on flying phobia.

We were on our way to Spain. My parents had had their honeymoon in Barcelona and were instant converts to foreign travel.

we used to drive down to Royan in France to camp. There were four of us in a VW beetle which my mum used to pack with tins of baked beans and sausages. We used to eat out every night and we always had steak and chips. The only french things I can remember are croissants and the glorious peaches. This was in the early 60's.

I first went to France in 1953, when I was 13. We went by overnight ferry, Dover to Calais, I think. I get that trip a bit mixed up with the next one in 1955, when we went to Switzerland as well as France. Our car was hauled onto the ferry by crane. It was a Standard, and that led to a family joke (my parents were fluent French speakers) - “L’étandard sanglant est levé.“ meaning “the bloody standard is raised”, a line from the Marseillaise.

From the age of 11 I travelled abroad with my parents. We always went by car and ferry across the channel.

Firstly we went loaded up with our tent and all the rest of the gear, later it was towing our caravan.

To begin with we went to Austria and Switzerland via France, Germany & Belgium. Later we went to Italy and Spain - always driving.

I was too young to know how it was financed but I do remember my Dad carried all the fuel we needed for the journey in Jerry Cans packed in our trailer. Absolutely illegal of course but fuel was so much more expensive in France & Germany that everyone else seemed to be doing it too!

I have some fantastic memories of those journeys and I have continued the tradition by driving all over Europe with my own family.

The big change was Geoffrey Howe abolishing exchange controls in 1979, not that the cash limits had been much of a practical problem before then, unless one went completely mad. I have a diary of my summer student courses in Paris in 1960 and 1961, and it was a world of exchanging travellers cheques and very small sums of money. When I did a year in Paris in 1967-8 I got an overdraft from my bank in London and opened an account with its Paris branch. I even talked somebody into Paris in May 1968 when she arrived at Le Bourget without a passport, and got her out again a couple of days later as France shut down. We were both there, Lucca.

My first ever trip abroad was my honeymoon to Lido di Jesolo in 1971. Flying out of Manchester Ringway I felt like I was in a Peter Stuyvesant world of sophistication with a Bert Kampfert soundtrack (even tho I was a soul girl through and through). I will never forget the heat and scent of the night air as we stepped out of the plane. First taste of pizza, of lasagne so commonplace now but absolutely new and strange and delicious. And the first sight of Venice! We'd gone on the ubiquitous trip recommended by the "rep" but it really was worth every penny and as golden afternoon turned to night the lights of San Marco gleamed, the orchestra at Florian's played the theme from the Godfather and everywhere the rainbow twinkle of light up yo-yos sold by the street vendors! Absolutely sublime!

I remember being excited getting my International Driving licence before driving off all round Europe in 1970. We had to change currency as we crossed each border.

As MerylStreep says - much more interesting!