Interrail 2000 (part 1)

This was a lovely journey shared with Manu, who until then had never left Italy. We spent very little (including the Interrail ticket, about 1,200,000 of the old lire). Setting off from Milan toward Nice, we crossed the whole of France as far as Brittany, then crossed England and afterwards wandered round magical Ireland. All this using any means of transport (trains, ships and a lot of hitchhiking) and sleeping wherever it happened.. many times without even paying.

On the afternoon of the first of August Manu's brother took us to the central station in Milan and, seeing that the direct train to Paris required a supplement, we decide to enter France via Menton, so we take the first train heading for the French Riviera. Having left the Nice station around 22:00 we head with our backpacks to the beach, where we spent the night under a romantic ceiling of stars. The next morning, around 6, we got on the first train to Lyon, where we spent the whole day. Having left our luggage we visited both the lower and the upper part of the city and in the evening, around 23:00, we returned to the station, taking a night train to Paris.

It was the third time I'd visited this most romantic city, so after a shower at the station, in the time between 7 in the morning and midnight, I showed Manu the whole city!! Absolutely all of it!! After taking another night train on which, I remember, I really couldn't close my eyes, we found ourselves at the north-western tip of France. In Brest! Well, the impact with this city was not at all positive, so almost immediately we headed for Lorient, where we found an unexpected but wonderful Celtic festival. Both the hostels and the campsites of Lorient, because of the biggest Celtic festival in the world, were all packed. Fortunately, while hitchhiking we were picked up by a very kind lady who took us to her home and who, with her husband and their 2 children, after making a thousand phone calls, found us accommodation at a campsite in Kerroch, 20-25 km from Lorient.

One of her sons even kindly accompanied us to the campsite. Here we spent 2 nights in our tiny little tent. To reach Lorient there was a very convenient bus, but most of the time we did the trip by hitchhiking - cheaper and even faster!!! The Festival Interceltique de Lorient is wonderful. There were artists from every part of the world. Away from the ocean coast and heading for England, an almost obligatory stop was the fascinating and enchanting Mont Saint-Michel. We settled at the Auberge de Jeunesse in Pontorson, at 19 rue de Normandie - 35610 - Pleine Fougeres. It was the first bed we'd slept in after more than a week; the only flaw, which I'd forgotten, was the separation between men and women... so Manu in the women's dormitory and I in the men's.

After visiting the abbey of Mont Saint-Michel and the surroundings of these places, our journey continued toward Rotterdam and then back to France, to Calais, where we took a ship to Dover.

Continues with England..