An Ode to HitchHiking

When I was young and probably foolish, I had a marvellous adventure hitichhiking with my first long term boyfriend. You can read about it in detail here. It was a wonderful memory to take forward and an experience which also helped me write this story about a long distance lorry driver who just happens to be a bigamist – based on my adopted father, actually.

I have already added the hitchhiking memoir to Wicked Wednesday before, so thought I’d write a short poem about the experience for this week’s prompt. I can’t say it’s my best poem – but I had fun writing it 🙂

3000 miles with hope in our hearts…

We hiked for 3000 miles

Across Europe from Athens to London –

Learning things along the way.

Looking for places to stay.

We left Athens in a lorry

And travelled through Greece –

Over the communist Yugoslavia borderline

fingers crossed that all would be fine

We stayed with a family in Belgrade

And marvelled at the clean streets –

Then before the curfew we took flight

safely in separate beds by midnight

On to Northern Italy for a day or two

We found a cheap room in Trieste –

Taking time out to visit the gondola city

it was springtime, so it looked and smelled pretty

On our way to Innsbrook in Austria

We hitched in a VW camper van –

The guys driving were sexy & ultra cool

I couldn’t help but flirt like a fool

They invited us to visit them in Munich

their flat had a bright green door –

They took us out to a nightclub

and to drink beer in a German pub

We stayed for nearly a week

Then found a ride through Belgium –

Finally, arriving to catch a ferry

feeling rather clever and merry

Our final stretch was from Dover

To a place called Sidcup in Kent –

We’d had a great time hitchhiking

now it was back to Sunday afternoon biking!

Header Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay