Into Europe / The Pleasure Boat 





My attempts at conversation had fallen on deaf ears until Tilde announced, from further along the carriage, that she enjoyed speaking English, and didn’t mind having her picture taken.

We were on a train in Antwerp Central station, in the summer of 2016.

We would travel as far as Luxembourg together, and I would hear of her family and its history, its war-time flight and survival, and of the schism that had caused her so much grief over the years, which she was on her way to resolve once and for all.









Tilde heard my attempts at conversation fall on deaf ears and from further along the carriage announced that she enjoyed speaking English, and wouldn’t mind having her picture taken either.

We were on a train in Antwerp Central station, in the summer of 2016.

We would travel as far as Luxembourg together and I would hear of her family and its history, its war-time flight and survival, and of the schism that had caused her so much grief over the years which she would tell me much later was finally resolved in the days following our first meeting.

My plan was to take a cruise on the Moselle, but the Princesse Marie Astrid turned out not to be the boat I had hoped, which had long since left Schengen they told me, and was in Germany now, in Regensburg, working the River Danube under a new name.
The Princesse Marie Astrid which the Schengen Agreement was signed was now the MS Regensburg, making pleasure trips to The Walhalla Memorial, a neo-classical hall modelled on the Parthenon, standing high above the river and filled with busts of significant individuals from German history.


As I was leaving Schengen that day I saw a car sitting by side of the road which was covered, almost entirely, with a hand painted picture of a Viking ship sailing past the Valhalla of Norse mythology.

As far as I can gather this was purely coincidental.