The Euro ’85 Pilgrimage Compendium collects the installments of my series about “the first time” (the one you remember?) wandering the continent in 1985 with a gym bag, passport and Eurail Pass. The chapters have been published on roughly the same dates, 40 years hence.
It changed me; I’ve never been the same.
28 July 2025: The compendium will be fleshed out during the coming days as the series approaches its end. The concluding three chapters will be published as follows:
- 14: Meeting the Finns, and into the Soviet Union for my 25th birthday (29 July 2025)
- 15: Behind the Iron Curtain in Leningrad, and the long trek back to Luxembourg (31 July 2025)
- 16: The final chapter; lessons learned and bridges burned (7 August 2025)
Installments to date:
Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 1: Three months that shook my world
Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 2: Crawling across the borderline into Luxembourg
Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 3: Growing up in Greece with Henry Miller
Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 4: Greece, Turkey, a famous Pythion interlude, and the Levant according to Hassan
Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 5: A critical Mass in Rome — and the famous Pecetto bus incident
Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 6: Pecetto idyll, with a Parisian chaser
Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 7: Vienna and the dawning of a Habsburg fixation
Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 8: At long last, glorious beer in Salzburg and Munich
Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 9: Lizard King in the City of Light — and on to Ireland
Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 10: Irish history with musical accompaniment and a Guinness chaser
Euro Pilgrimage ‘85, Ch. 11: Sligo respite, Live Aid, and then back to France for the D-Day beaches
Euro Pilgrimage ‘85, Ch. 12: Omaha Beach to the Manneken-Pis and Little Mermaid
Euro Pilgrimage ‘85, Ch. 13: Introductions to Oslo, Bergen, Stockholm and Uppsala
