Holidays abroad

I never went abroad with my parents, but fond memories of holidays in Blackpool, New Brighton and then Carbis Bay in Cornwall. I first went abroad in 1969 with Primary School to Wimereux in Normandy and then with high school starting in 1971 with Yugoslavia and followed by trips to Austria, Switzerland and numerous trips to France. Just after my O levels I spent a month in France with my penfriend - an amazing experience, her dad was the village baker and I was there for Bastille Day so we helped in the bakery with the preparations. Two years later I travelled through France and into Spain on a camping trip with friends of my parents and their 3 children. It wasn't until after my brother and I were married that my parents went abroad and looking back I realize how lucky I was. My brother also had trips abroad but nowhere near the number I had.

MissAdventure

Yes, there were/are lots of narrow, winding roads.
My dad was towing a caravan, too.
Daredevils, we were!

Your dad sounded brave. Imagine doing that today, but I suppose people do.

In 1965 we holidayed for 2 weeks in Sitges, Spain. Mum, dad, me (12) and my sister, (9). We went from Manchester. Didn’t fly (my mum was too scared). Stayed the weekend in London. I remember visiting 10 Downing Street when it didn’t have a gated end - we walked right up to the policeman at the door. Also recall Buckingham Palace gates and Lyon’s Corner House.

Ferry to France then on to Paris, Gard du North. My dad encouraged me to use my Y7 French in a café to order coffee for them at the counter. I was so shy and embarrassed. Then we took the sleeper train through France. That was fun!

In Spain (August, so hot & humid) we got a train to the coast. We were 2nd class. I remember goats in the wagon at the back of the carriage behind us. My sister and I were wearing ‘trews’ trousers with elasticated stirrups under our feet. So neat and tidy (presentable said mum) however by then we were melting.

The hotel seemed strange to us. Bottled fizzy water (ugh!) and strange food. The bread rolls were like rocks. The staff didn’t speak English. We had no Spanish. 🤷‍♀️

I remember mum & dad went to watch a bull fight in Barcelona. They left my sister and I in the care of the hotel staff 😱 anything could’ve happened.

My mum was traumatised at the cutting off of a bull’s ear during the spectacle, which got flung into the spectators. It landed next to the gentleman beside her apparently - ‘warm and wet with blood’ she said. The Spaniard himself was delighted with his trophy.

The only other thing I can remember is an afternoon spent in nearby Barcelona where the traffic police wore white uniforms and white gloves and helmets - directing the traffic using loud whistles.

Had a day trip to Boulogne.

When I was 15 in 1961 my parents who had never camped before or been abroad ought a frame tent and we drove to Spain where we stayed for 6 weeks. The following year we went to six different countries. I went for s few more years with them until I had a family of my own when we used to camp in Europe for 3 weeks every summer.

As a child our family holidays consisted of camping in wales or Devon and Cornwall .
I married at 19 to a soldier and a few months later flew to Hong Kong . I only stayed for 6 months because I lost two of my dear grandparents while I was there and was heartbroken . My husband followed me a few months later.
We never went abroad again until I booked us a holiday in Corfu in 1994 . Our children were adults by that time . After that my husband and I went on many holidays to Greece , and to the Carribean.
Unfortunately he died in 2007 but since then I have holidayed with various family members . My next holiday will be a Fjord cruise next April .

Up until I was fifteen, our only holidays had been to stay with relatives in Britain. In 1963, my parents booked a coach trip to Belguim. We went all the way from NE Scotland to Bruges by bus and ferry. My two cousins, also fifteen, came too. We stayed in the Atlantic Hotel. It wasn’t an expensive hotel, but the food was okay, as I recall. The most exciting thing for my cousins and I was that a local boys football team were also on the trip! Sadly, we were of an age that didn’t appreciate the lovely city of Bruges.

Yes Belgium, France and ROI (does that count). All during the 1950s and 60s.

We flew from Lydd to Le Touquet in a Dakota for the day. Later we flew to Belgium.

I have relatives in ROI so we flew to Dublin several times between 1952 and 1964.

Family holidays were always rather fraught and I can't remember very much about any of them.

We went to Majorca when I was in my first year at Grammar, in '71.
Some new friends of my parents had persuaded them to go along, it was a nice place but Mum didn't like the heat & Dad didn't like the food (he lived on mediteranean baked eggs all week).
We didn't go abroad as a family again.

Only foreign holiday as a child was going to Holland with my parents and cousin to visit my aunt who had moved there. She had emigrated to Australia in the 60’s because her husband wanted to. In fact he never settled and insisted they move back to the UK after they had been there 10 years and my aunt and cousins had made their lives there.
My aunt came back to England by boat, the uncle had already come back. She met a Dutchman on the boat and went to Holland with him instead of joining my uncle. It was a great scandal at the time.
Anyway the Dutchman proved to be quite boring as was our holiday- we spent our time in their small house in a little village. I remember my mother was put out because although they had a dishwasher he didn’t allow anyone to use it. We rarely went anywhere because he didn’t like to use the car, although we had one day trip to Amsterdam. I was 15 and very bored away from my friends and social life.
I think my aunt felt that she had made her bed and had to stay in it, she lived in Holland for over 20 years and looked after him through alzheimers.

Dad took my brother and I to Benidorm in 1968. Our first trip abroad and first time in an aeroplane. I was utterly amazed to find that the countries we flew over looked like a map. We did all the classic things, spent too long on the beach and got red as lobsters, drank too much cheap Spanish wine and had hangovers. I danced in the disco and was kissed by a Spanish boy. It was great. Mum stayed at home and in fact never went abroad or had a passport. Her choice.

grumppa

A few days in Paris when I was twelve, back in 1956, then another trip there a couple of years later combined with parental business, then a month on my own there when I was sixteen, attending a course at the Sorbonne, mornings only. That was a great holiday! But family holidays were always in the UK.

I think my sister did the same course at the Sorbonne a year or two after you.

Hatcham. We are off to Southbourne next week. Had never heard of it before we booked. Hoping for sunshine and a bit of sea swimming.

I went to teach at a Spanish school in Madrid in 1971 and stayed for three years. Happy days, lovely food and a very low cost of living. I came back with £1000 in savings and was able to put a deposit down on a small flat. The Spanish boyfriend was left behind, but that's a different story!
Before that, in the sixties, my Mother and Father used to go away on coach holidays organised through an eager group of people from our local Catholic Church. They went to Majorca, which was already becoming very popular, and also to the Black Forest in Germany. They also travelled to Lourdes in France on a pilgrimage. They loved these trips, nothing ever went seriously wrong and the 'manager' on these trips was quite a character and kept them amused the whole time they were there.

Great Yarmouth every June - my parents' wedding anniversary, and there were no sanctions for taking their precious daughter out of primary school for the week! It usually rained, we stayed in self-catering apartments where any number of guests shared a bathroom and loo at the end of the corridor, and one year I contracted glandular fever and cried because I felt so poorly. For some reason I've never looked forward to holidays since 🤔

I was lucky in that my father's parents lived in Southbourne just a short walk from the beach!

My first trip abroad was when I was 20 with my now DH and friends to Corfu. My poor DH got food poisoning and was laid up for the best part of the two weeks we were there. Not a good start to overseas travel.

I had three holidays abroad as a child, these came about because my father was British and my mother Danish, so on all three occasions we visited my grandmother and aunt in Denmark.

I remember only three things from the first holiday: watching the stokers shovelling coke in the stoke hold of Gullfoss the ship that ailed Leith-Copenhagen- Thorshavn-Rejkavik, a visit to the zoo in Copenhagen, and the red wooden dolls' pram my grandmother gave me -every little Danish girl of my generation probably had one, but they were totally unknown in Scotland! My favourite doll was too big to fit into it, but fortunately, my beloved Teddy wasn't, so the pram was ever afterwards known as Teddy's pram.

I was two at that time, so I think I did well to remember anything at all. Next visit to our Danish family was when I was seven and had been seriously ill. My grandmother paid the air tickets for Mummy and me to travel to Copenhagen, on convalesence - I suspect Mummy needed it more than I did.

I have quite a lot of memories of those ten days. Two years later we all went to Denmark for our summer holiday - a whole fortnight.

I only knew one other child who was taken abroad on holiday, she too had parents of different nationalties.

Cath9 My parents gave us wonderful holidays in the 60’s, always camping as they had little spare money but what adventures driving all through France, Spain and Portugal 😃😃

My parents both worked for British Rail so we went further than any of our friends from East London as we got the travel part free. We went all over the country but never abroad. My first holiday abroad was in 1966 with a work friend, we went to Estartit in Spain for 10 days full board, cost us £29 each, had a whale of a time.

A few days in Paris when I was twelve, back in 1956, then another trip there a couple of years later combined with parental business, then a month on my own there when I was sixteen, attending a course at the Sorbonne, mornings only. That was a great holiday! But family holidays were always in the UK.

Yes, there were/are lots of narrow, winding roads.
My dad was towing a caravan, too.
Daredevils, we were!

MissAdventure

My dad always had a car, as it was his real interest in life, tinkering around with engines, and his job, on sites, repairing cranes, and diggers and heavy machinery.

Our old car though, almost always broke down on the way to Cornwall.

Sitting on the hard shoulder, with hot water spurting out from the radiator.

My dad having to hand crank the car to start it up again.

I’ve never been to Cornwall. Would love to go, but our neighbours found the narrow country roads hard work. They ended up with two broken mirrors 😩

Thank you for coming back Cath9. Your holidays abroad sound lovely.
When I was young, we never travelled abroad as money was tight, but come the 1970’s I did go on a school exchange visit to Germany which I really enjoyed. I did go abroad a couple of times with my parents as a young adult, once to Austria and another time to Germany. They were coach holidays and we got to the continent by ferry.
Since then I’ve been abroad many times but independently of my parents.

Sorry to say this Sago but your mother doesn't sound very nice. You have mentioned her before.