Europ'Raid (part 1)

At the end of July, I have left Saint Barthélémy to return in France. The departure was not very joyful, with my friends we'd just met some new people with whom we spent good times and leaving everyone continue their summer without me was frustrating. 

But at the same time, I was very excited and glad about the new trip I was going to make, drive around Europe in a Peugeot 205. 

Let me explain, during my second year at university, we had to prepare a project that we had to work on throughout the year. With two of my friends, we chose to take part in the sixth edition of the Europ'Raid, a humanitarian trip across Europe whose aim is to distribute school supplies to children in disadvantaged schools. 

For a year we have promoted our project on social networks. We have collected donations, organised events and actively searched for sponsors. 

So, that's why I joined my friends at the end of July to make the final preparations and take the road. Over the last few months, the organisation was more complicated due to my distance, but we had managed to organize ourselves and I was able to raise money through donations and sponsorship while the others have been busy organising events while getting the car ready. 

The departure took place on Saturday 27th July in a small town in France. All the cars were honking and everyone was excited to drive away. The atmosphere was crazy. 

The First step was to drive through France to reach Switzerland the next day. Unfortunately, the first day the rain was horrible, and we arrived soaked in the evening. 

The next day we arrived in Switzerland where we decided to visit Geneva and its famous water jets. Then we went through the cols in the mountains, and it was really beautiful. Switzerland is a rich country where everything seems orderly. The houses are pretty and the grass is always mowed everywhere (we are still looking for how this is possible). When we reached the Bivouac in the evening, we made friends with two teams from the same place as my two partners. 

They were very nice and we decided to drive with them the next day in Italy. We all agreed to visit Milan, Venice and eat a pizza ! 

And that's what we did the next day. Milan is a very pretty city with its cathedral and large shopping mall of luxury boutiques, but we all greatly preferred Venice. Indeed, although it is a very small town, it has an incredible charm. I advise everyone to put it on their list of cities that they have to see at least once in their lives. Our only regret was that we went all over the city to eat an Italian ice cream... which we never found. 

The next day we wanted to take advantage of the good weather for a hike. As we walked for four hours and also had a lot of driving, it was the only thing we could do all day. But it was worth it. The view was breathtaking, and when we reached the top of the mountains, a beautiful blue lake opened up before us. We bathed in this frozen water and took some pictures. I'm sure it will remain the most beautiful lake I have ever seen in the whole adventure. 

In the following days we crossed Austria and Slovenia to reach Croatia and the Adriatic coast. The landscapes were completely different from the ones I knew in France, and it was incredible to discover so much diversity of landscapes in Europe. For the first time of the trip, we had a swim in a small beach with turquoise water.

Every day we had a long way to travel and the tiredness was starting to show. Fortunately, my partners were great drivers. We were also frustrated not to be able to visit everything, knowing that we didn't want to arrive too late at the bivouac to enjoy a bit with the other participants. I was with friends as partygoer as I am and I can now admit that we had quite a lot of parties. In this way we were able to meet a lot of people and in particular to sympathise with the organisation which was watching over the bivouac until very late in the evening.

I could talk hundreds of hours about our road trip, and I still have many beautiful places to tell you about, such as Montenegro. My favorite country of this trip so I can't wait to tell you about it in the next post. 


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