Can’t believe this but TEN years ago I went on the trip of a lifetime with my best friend Vicky, also known as Fox (so yes, that makes me Mole, don’t ask!)
We were both working in a Mexican restaurant at the time and had become firm friends straight away, spending several nights a week sharing bottles of red wine and talking about what we’d done in our lives and what we dreamed of doing in the future. You really get to know someone very well when you pour your heart out over a bottle of Merlot (or four!)
Anyway, we were both desperate to travel. I’d returned to Liverpool from university in Cornwall four years earlier and still hadn’t found my dream photography job. Vic was only 20 at the time and had dropped out of university, still unsure of what she wanted to do. So, we decided to take a break and go travelling! We saved up all our tips for months and months and started to make plans for the route we would take. We decided to start in Amsterdam then on to Paris where we would celebrate Vic’s 21st! From there we did Nice, Monaco, Cannes, Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, Athens, then on to the Greek islands, Mykonos, Rhodes, Crete, Santorini and finally Cyprus where our friends Lisa and Roy were getting married! Phew!!
The trip took two months and as you can imagine it was AMAZING!! If we thought we were friends before the trip then we were like sisters when we came back! Not one argument the whole time we were there, just plenty of laughs, even when we were freezing our arses off on a Greek ferry, being eaten alive by mozzies, eating bread and tuna salad AGAIN because our money was running out or sleeping in bug infested hotel rooms!
Victoria “Fox” Collins, I love you to bits, you’re an absolute dickhead but you’re my dickhead!! Thank you for being the best friend a girl could ever wish for, I seriously don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come into my life, I’d probably still be propping up the bar in the Tavern!
Here are some of the highlights from our trip (not necessarily in order), all images shot on Polaroid, neg film or slide and scanned! We also fancied ourselves as poets and wrote little poems about each place we visited! 🙂
We look so YOUNG!!! Those backpacks were a pain, I got mine stuck in the tram door haha! We had amazing arm and leg muscles when we got back though (and yes we were rocking the double denim!!)
Amsterdam canals
Amsterdam bike and Venice artwork which sort of summed up the whole trip!
Venice, what a place but HOT HOT HOT!!
Paris, we did all the touristy stuff!
Nice, sh*thole of a hotel, we even had to share a bed! The view over the road was nice though!
Day trip to Monaco
Vatican City, Rome
The Colosseum, what an amazing place to visit, we tagged along on the guided tour which was awesome!
Taken looking down from the Colosseum
Rome which we loved even though our first campsite was awful, Milan on the other hand…
Leaving Italy for Greece
Athens, wow!!
Rhodes, our spiritual home, Lindos in particular!
Santorini and Mykonos, I have so many more images but it seems I didn’t scan that many of them at the time (probably because I was so skint after getting 90 million rolls of film developed!)
Our final stop in Cyprus for Lisa & Roy’s wedding!
This trip changed my life. It made me look at the world differently and to appreciate things more. Less than a year later I landed my dream job (at the time!) and bought a house with Vic. We were a happy little family, we even got a dog! We’re still best friends now and even though we don’t see each other every day I know she’s there for me, whenever I need her 🙂
Right, now I need to plan another big adventure, who wants to come with me?!! 🙂
