Week 24: An abrupt exit of Europe

5 countries in a week.

what

Well. If you had told me one week ago, the situation we are in today I would not have believed you. As I write this, we are sat in the small office of a mechanic in Kent in South East England. We are getting our MOT (Registration Check) so that we can hand our precious home over to a broker to sell on Monday. Let me take you back to the beginning of the week and show you how we got to this point.

It started in Schwerin, a small city in Northern Germany that we chose on the map in order to move away from the surging cases of Coronavirus which were edging their way north from the now epicentre Italy. It is wonderfully peaceful germanic village with a stunning renaissance castle that sits on an island in a picturesque lake. Storybook level stuff. It was much colder there than in Berlin but the cold wind brought clear blue skies so we were ok with it. We most of all were ok with the only handful of cases in the entire north of Germany and the relative remoteness of Schwerin calmed our nerves as we began to form an escape plan. Waking to more alarming news about border closures and flight cancellations we scrapped our plan to stop a night in Bremen and drove a very long way to Amsterdam. Arriving in the early evening to a huge campsite, we discovered that many museums, attractions and cafe’s were closing or closed for the safety of their staff and patrons and slow the spread of the virus. The Netherlands has a lot of cases but mostly in the south. We spent a couple of days doing literally everything we could that was outdoors and open but awoke on the third morning to discover that the government was closing essentially everything and that the Prime Minister of the Netherlands was due to give a national televised address to the nation, the first such address in 40 or so years. With this news, accompanied by the torrent of border closures in Europe, including places which previously said they wouldn’t close borders like Germany, we decided we needed to leave immediately.

We jumped online and booked a ferry from Calais to Dover for later in the afternoon and proceeded to drive from Amsterdam, through 4 countries, for over 4 hours to reach Calais in time to get back to the UK. Hearing of the supermarket hoarding and soaring COVID cases in the UK we decided to stock up on essentials in France to last us if we needed to go into quarantine. We pulled up at a very busy and bare shelved carrefour and scrounged together some basic necessities which should make for strange meals. Of course, in all the chaos, a group of sketchy looking men were trying all the doors on our van as we came out of the supermarket, in the middle of the day, in a very busy carpark. We had to yell and run at them and they scurried off, arseholes.

The ferry was near empty and fairly uneventful but for the intense border force questioning by British immigration. Not regarding the virus in any way, just about our intentions and if we would seek work in the UK. We arrived in Dover and parked up at the white cliffs in time to watch the announcement that Europes borders to non-residents were now closed. Made it by the skin of our teeth.

We have been looking at flights but all seemed to be cancelled or booked until early next week. We are self- isolating at a farmhouse Airbnb in Kent and have been spending the interim time sprucing up the inside of the van and sorting our possessions in preparation to go home.

So here we are back in the United Kingdom. It’s Friday and we are booked on a flight first thing Tuesday morning. We were meant to have 6 or more months remaining of our trip of a lifetime. On Monday we drive our beloved van and our home for the last 6 months, all the way to Yorkshire to hand over to a Broker to sell on our behalf. We were lucky to get someone to take it in times like these. In the mean time we are trying to figure out what the future months have in store for us. We are going home to 2 weeks of mandated isolation and then… who knows?

Questions? Has your travel been impacted by COVID too? hit us up and share below.

Week 24

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