Throughout 1974 I hitch-hiked far and wide across Europe... from the crisp mornings of Rome in February to the cloudless skies of the Peloponnese. I walked through the fragrant orange groves south of Barcelona at three in the morning looking for a place to bed down; one night, Czech border guards locked me in the waiting room of a station on the Austrian border.

In Spain, the iron-fisted rule of the ageing Franco had dragged on for nearly thirty years. I pondered one of Spain's deep and impenetrable mysteries: the ubiquitous Guardia Civil in his dark-suited uniform and black plastic three-cornered hat, trudging alone down a blazing hot country road clutching his briefcase. Documents of state? Or a cut lunch?

On a balmy night in Granada, the Easter Holy Week, Semana Santa, got underway, the bars jumping with people from all over. After midnight, a hush descended as the procession bearing the Virgin's image began inching through the streets, applauded solemnly, and escorted not only by white-robed, hooded Inquisitors, but by goose-stepping troops in full dress uniform.

Crossing into Portugal I savoured the euphoria following the March 1974 revolution, which swept away the colonial delusions of the Salazar regime. At Sagres on the south-western tip of Europe, the youth hostel was once the School of Navigation whose graduates inaugurated Portugal's golden age of discovery.

As the ferry nosed into the pier at Rosslare on the Irish Sea coast, the foot passengers fell into line to disembark. A lone carrot-headed American co-ed turned around to ask about onward train connections. I said I was hitch-hiking, myself. A moment's silence, then: "Can I come too?"

Gaye was wrapping up a year in the British Isles before returning to college in Rhode Island. So began six days of innocent companionship – Irish landladies were far too uptight to tolerate anything more.

We found the locals hospitable but rarely travelling far; the roads quiet and the towns often drab. Gaye and I walked many an Irish mile, but one morning an American girl, touring alone, pulled over. Not comfortable with the ‘stick shift’ or keeping left, Cathy soon offered me the wheel. Together we three explored the Ring of Kerry, the Dingle Peninsula and the Cliffs of Moher, the Emerald Isle’s finest coastal landscapes. Gaye and I would stay in touch for the next ten years.

October, 2001. Ireland was poised to introduce the Euro. Arriving in Dublin, I picked up a rental car and ventured once more onto Irish roads, far busier but bereft of hitch-hikers. The northern summer was long gone and dense fog shrouded many a morning. Now the Irish towns were freshly painted and smugly prosperous; each night we lodged in smartly-furnished B&Bs whose landladies’ sons and daughters were travelling the world. Ireland had become unrecognisable.