Reid & Robie

Everyone’s destination is the same; only the paths are different.

– Sushmita Sen

Hendaye, France – Saturday, June 11, 1983

A woman’s voice pierced the early morning fog crying, “Bordeaux?” in a high-pitched shriek.

Nothing about the morning had gone right.

Awakened as the train pulled into the station, our trio scrambled to gather bags and books, and in the rush to disembark my sister left her glasses onboard the train. Realizing they were gone, Cheryl raced back to the compartment to retrieve them alighting as the Australian woman she befriended during the night demanded help with her luggage.

Sheila joined us when our train pulled out of Paris and the twinkling lights of the Eiffel Tower were visible in the distance. As the railcars headed south, the petite blonde regaled us with tales of her solo travels across Europe, and when she talked about visiting Munich and Amsterdam, Cheryl took notes since they’re two of the cities we plan to visit after Italy and Greece.

The Grand Tour was my sister’s idea, a last-ditch grasp at freedom before starting her career, and once our parents agreed, they demanded just one thing: that Cheryl find someone to go with her. But with everyone starting grad school or new jobs, no one she knew had the resources to wander around Europe for eight weeks. For a time, it looked like my sister’s dream trip wouldn’t happen until she realized I had the only two things that mattered: time to kill and access to Mom and Dad’s money. Because then Cheryl found her patsy.

At fifteen, I wear braces, can’t drive and am too young to get a job. But while the six-and-a-half-year age difference would be a deterrent for most, for Cheryl, the summer’s a chance to finish molding me in her image and have someone do the trip research so she doesn’t have to.

For the past four years we’ve seen each other only on holidays and occasional weekends. But family dinners and a shared Jack and Jill bathroom didn’t prepare us to spend two months together, and within days of landing in London we were at each other’s throats.

In Edinburgh Cheryl got mad when I used two pence at a pay toilet then exploded when she found the museums, palace and churches in Brussels closed. While we since learned that most attractions are closed Mondays, I’ve been doing what I can to avoid igniting my sister’s redheaded fury.

Following Belgium, we traveled to the City of Light where Cheryl agreed to slow down and spend three nights in the same hotel. But thanks to my sister’s sightseeing frenzy, Paris wasn’t the relaxing break I’d hoped for. Looking to make up for past failures, she dragged me from the Arc de Triomphe to the Bastille, from Montparnasse to Montmartre. If there was a monument, a museum, a church, palace, tomb or plaque, Cheryl found it.

The Louvre, Rodin Museum, Place de la Concorde, Champs Elysees, Napoleon’s Tomb, Army Museum, Concierge, Notre Dame, St. Chappelle, who knew Paris was filled with so much art and history? Yesterday, after taking a train to Versailles, we returned to Paris to bid adieu from the Eiffel Tower at dusk. But instead of enjoying a leisurely ride to the top, my sister bought the cheapest tickets available forcing us to climb seven hundred and forty-seven steps to the observation deck. 

For two weeks my sister’s been trying not to spend money. Overnight trains in place of hotels, an inn’s stale breakfast rolls instead of lunch, and when we needed to store our luggage for the trip to Scotland, she sent me alone to King’s Cross lugging both our bags while she waited in the Tube station – all so she could continue on without purchasing another ticket for the Underground.

But shouldn’t the accounting major know a Tube ticket only costs 90 cents?

So, when our independent, solo-traveling, Australian tagalong asked for help with her bags, I was determined not to become her pack mule too. Setting out to wander the station platform, I hoped to stretch my sore legs while searching for a luggage cart. But it didn’t take much to see that Hendaye didn’t have a lot of modern conveniences. After all, the tiny dot on the map wasn’t of interest except that it was the final outpost on the Atlantic coast before Spain.

Suddenly, the early morning calm was shattered by Sheila screaming something about Bordeaux. As Cheryl rushed over to help, she bypassed the raving Aussie and turned her attention to the only other person in sight this early in the morning.

The heavyset man behind the booth at Train Information had beady eyes, a black mustache and blue hat that was too small for his head. As I neared, I heard my sister ask him in Spanish to repeat what he’d told Sheila, and with a heavy French accent, he explained that there weren’t any more trains going to Spain today, so if we wanted to cross the border, we had to go back to Bordeaux four hours away.

Hearing the French city again, Sheila threw up her arms and began ranting and pacing the platform.

Coming up to me, Cheryl asked for our train tickets then took the stapled pages to the man showing him our vouchers from Paris to Hendaye then Irun to Madrid. But he simply shook his head and repeated his instructions to return to Bordeaux.

Before leaving Paris, I’d argued that Madrid was a long way to go in the wrong direction from our eventual loop east across southern Europe toward Greece. While I tried to entice my sightseeing-obsessed sister with extra days to explore the museums of Florence, ruins of Rome and churches, basilicas, chapels and cathedrals across Italy, I looked forward to lounging on the French Riviera for a few days first.

My sister had other ideas.

In Paris we’d been typical American tourists wandering around the city without speaking a word of French. Though we’ve learned to read pictorial signs and picked up the Queen’s English used across the Continent where “mind the gap” means watch your step and exit is now “way out,” our lack of French hadn’t done much for our relations with the Parisians. And now Cheryl was determined to test what she remembered from two years of high school Spanish in Madrid. So instead of waking up within sight of the Mediterranean, we were stuck at the border on the wrong side of France listening to some idiot tell us to travel eight hours in the wrong direction just to get 500 yards further down the track.

Even at this hour it was clear Hendaye wasn’t a happening place, and I could see the bored man amusing himself by sending us the wrong way before meeting his Spanish counterparts to enjoy a few beers and laugh about the stupid tricks they played on tourists.

But how far could it be to the border? And once there, couldn’t we simply hop another train to Madrid?

It felt like a bad Cold War movie where two isolated tracks lead off into a smoke-filled distance as our hero prepares to make a mad dash for freedom. Cheryl and I could make it, I knew. But I was far less certain Sheila could go anywhere with her mountain of luggage. While the woman had finally stopped pacing, I could still hear her grumbling behind me.

In the other direction Cheryl kept arguing and pointing toward the tracks while the man at Train Information crossed his arms over his belly and once more shook his head. That’s when I heard my sister shout in exasperation, “But the train’s still sitting here!”

After alighting under the first pink rays of dawn, we had time to retrieve Cheryl’s glasses, wander around the tiny station and change money from the man who worked both Train Information and the currency exchange booth. All while the train from Paris sat idling gently on the tracks. And since it was still there, I now understood why the three of us had been the only passengers to disembark in Hendaye.

Unlike the train in Britain where we missed our connection to Dover because we didn’t get off the railcar in time, now Cheryl and I stood on the edge of Spain unable to get in because we’d disembarked too soon.

“Get back on the train!” my sister screamed.

As though waiting for her signal, at that instant the conductor revved the engine, and the steel wheels rotated back half a turn before beginning their first, slow revolution toward Spain.

Suddenly a man’s voice called out in the distance, and I looked up to see a policeman on the platform.

Until now the only people at the station were my sister, our Australian tagalong and the unhelpful man at the ticket counter. But if the officer was walking his regular beat expecting to find another quiet morning at the depot, what he discovered was anything but routine.

While I doubted that he’d understood Cheryl’s bark to get back on the train, from the cop’s tone I realized I shouldn’t try to reboard. Except I wasn’t the person he was yelling at.

Turning around, I saw Sheila babbling to herself and chucking her three suitcases into the open door of a railcar. The next instant she disappeared on board.

Turning her attention to the policeman, Cheryl begged him to stop the train. “Por favor! Por favor!” she pleaded. And when the officer blew his whistle, my sister mistook the high-pitched screech as a signal to hold the departure and set out for the nearest car before lunging onto the slow-moving train.

Mesmerized by the circus unfolding around me, my feet remained rooted, my legs too exhausted to move. With no one left to detain, the officer raced toward me blasting his whistle in short, quick bursts while at the edge of my vision I could see the train’s wheels churning faster. Picking up my bag, I forced my legs into action sprinting for the train, and as a railcar approached, I jumped into the moving doorway landing hard.

I’d barely recovered before the train began to slow. Expecting uniformed officers ready to deport us, I was too afraid to look outside until someone in the car ahead pointed at a signpost indicating Irun, and I knew we’d crossed the border into Spain.

After the delay in Hendaye, the passengers were eager to disembark, jostling and pushing me off the train as soon as it stopped. And once I spotted Cheryl and Sheila, we followed the crowd into Customs and Immigration where the Aussie soon began to unravel again.

At the sound of Sheila screaming, my sister stepped in to help once more. And following a stilted conversation with the border guard, she explained that Australian citizens needed a visa to visit Spain, but since Sheila didn’t have one she couldn’t enter the country. Translating the officer’s instructions Cheryl tied to calm the excitable woman. “Go back to France and get a visa. He says there are several trains a day between Irun and Hendaye.” 

But Sheila wasn’t convinced. “That’s not what they told us in Hendaye,” she argued. And after failing to get the guard to look the other way, the woman tried the only thing she could think of. Pointing toward us, she exclaimed, “We’re traveling together. If I can’t pass, they can’t either. We have to stay together.”

The argument made little sense. Cheryl and I had already cleared customs and immigration. And while I didn’t envy Sheila having to face the policeman in Hendaye after starting the chain of events that left him standing on an empty platform, I wasn’t disappointed to be rid of the back-stabbing Aussie.

Without a backward glance, Cheryl and I grabbed our things and boarded the train for Madrid leaving Sheila – and Irun – behind.

Logroño, Spain – Thursday, August 21, 2025

Two days ago, Cheryl and Steve joined me and Robie in Spain, and on Saturday Cheryl and I will return to Irun – 42 years after our last visit – to begin the long trek on the Camino de Santiago.

We’re hoping for a smoother entry into the city this time. 

Update: Now that I’m leaving for the Camino, many of the posts you’ll see in September and October were written in advance. Robie will supplement these with pictures from his trip with Steve (Cheryl’s husband) as the two gallivant around Italy looking for €1 houses. And he’ll post occasional updates on our slow but steady progress across northern Spain.

We’d love to hear from you along the way. Because I already know that two months is a long time to be alone with my sister.