Friendly Foreigners

About the Book

This is the story of an adventure filled, good humoured three months hitchhiking trip my friend Per and I made through Europe in 1949 on a very small budget.

The impetus for the trip was an offer from our mutual employer for the two of us to travel to Frankfurt Am Main to re-establish a pre-war Danish monopoly from the German refrigeration giant ATE. The timing was perfect: Per had just graduated as an accountant, and I had finished first part of Law.

After a successful stay in Frankfurt we continue by train to Basel, Switzerland, where the hitchhiking begins. We visit a farmer high in the mountains; laboriously climb the St. Gotthard pass to finally secure a lift with a young Norwegian for a wild ride down the mountain into the Tizino Valley in Italy.

Arriving in Milan, we are arrested for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fortunately we are rescued from any in-depth acquaintance with the jail by a friend of Per's father, who's hospitality quickly obliterates our first impression of the city.

Proceeding to Genoa, we befriend some seafaring countrymen, and become guests of the international crew on the oiltanker Esso Bea. Unfortunately our innocence and lack of experience with "loose" women lead us into an embarrassing situation, where a collection is taken up on our behalf for a purpose we never suspected.

In Pisa we run into - literally - a French student, who on parting gives us an address in Paris, which turns out to be very helpful. Leaving town, we have quite a time helping a lady in distress changing a fat tire.

Thanks to some over-eager attempts to expand our limited knowledge of Italian, we miss an opportunity for cheap accommodation in Rome, the city I mostly remember as the place where I learned to eat tomatoes.

Heading north again we are lucky to retrieve a lost poodle to its titled owner, resulting in an overnight stay at an impressive estate near Rapallo. We continue along the coast to Menton, France where we arrive in a semiconscious state after a strenuous late, late night walk around the mountain from Ventimiglia, Italy.

We check into what we believe are modest lodgings, only to wake up in the bridal suite of a five-star hotel. Naive insistence on seeing the owner leads to four days in the laps luxury at no cost, and to meeting some interesting people.

Without realizing it we are in a race to Marseille, where we turn down a chance to "hammer rust" on a ship to Algiers. Instead we saunter through the Rhone valley to Lyon, and thanks to some university students get a memorable ride on a truck loaded with peaches destined for Les Halles in Paris.

Paris turns out to be extremely hospitable, offering sixteen days in an apartment, which we transform into a "Nouveau Art" exhibit without the owner's knowledge or permission, but fortunately to his eventual approval.

Leaving town we join some French hikers for a culinary adventure, and after a short and highly compressed ride cross the border to Belgium. Near Mons we are treated to a most unusual public bath and much more in a friendly neighbourhood.

In Bruxelles we secure a ride to Amsterdam, staying overnight as guests of the driver, who delivers us to the railway station that following morning. Unfortunately there is no train to Denmark until the next day. Our meagre funds exhausted, we are forced to use ingenuity and athletics to find lodgings for this night.

We finally return to Denmark convinced that most people are basically friendly, honest, trusting and helpful - a conviction I have retained to this day, in spite of the many exceptions I have met over the years.

About the Author

Born in Denmark in 1928, Elo K. Glinfort studied law at the University of Copenhagen and criminology and social work at the University of Toronto after arriving in Canada in 1955.

Spanning all facets of criminal justice, he has been a probation and parole officer, director of a private after-care agency and superintendent of Ontario's treatment centres for drug addicts, alcoholics and sex offenders.

After fourteen years as Director of Planning and Intergovernmental Affairs and Senior Consultant on Criminal Justice for the Canadian Federal Solicitor General's Department he took an early retirement in 1987 to pursue a lifelong interest in ancient history, travel, golf and writing.

He lives with his wife, Dorothy, in villages of Glancaster in Mount Hope, Ontario.