Grand discovery after dazzling days and carefree nights

By the time we reached Cesky Krumlov, we were used to sleeping rough. We’d slept at Frankfurt station when we’d accidentally found ourselves in Germany rather than Luxembourg. We’d spent a night wandering the streets in Regensburg when we’d missed the youth hostel curfew. And we’d made ourselves comfortable on a platform somewhere near the German-Czechia border when our train never came.

That night, we arrived in the little Czech town around midnight with our packs on our backs, four 18-year-old girls wandering the empty cobblestone streets like long-legged snails. We knocked on guest house doors. No one answered. We were on the verge of finding a quiet spot in the square to sleep when a woman answered her door. She had space in her old guest house, a pretty room with exposed wooden beams and patchwork quilts. We clambered into bed gratefully.

The next morning, we woke late, roused by the smell of coffee. We followed it to the verandah. The daylight was dazzling. I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the most beautiful sight I had ever seen.

View of the medieval town of Cesky Krumlov in South Bohemia region, Czech Republic. Credit: Getty Images

We were on the banks of a river, the Vltava, which swept in a U-shape through the town. It was lined by fairytale cottages in reds and yellows, with triangular roofs, carved shutters and flowering vines. A castle loomed above us, which seemed built into the hill. I had never seen anything so breathtaking. We were giddy with wonder and awe. We had little money but oodles of time, so we stayed in that little room for the best part of a week, riding rubber tubes around the river’s U-bend by day and having picnics on the river’s banks by night.

That moment on the balcony captured the spirit of my European summer of 1995. The year before, we’d been schoolgirls, struggling under the pressure of the HSC and then juggling multiple jobs to save for our gap year adventure. As we stepped off the plane at Heathrow, we were butterflies emerging from the chrysalis, gaping in wonder and intoxicated by our new freedom.

We had no safety net. There were no mobile phones, no internet and no email. Eastern Europe had only emerged from communist rule six years earlier, so tourist infrastructure was slight.

Our parents, sick with worry (I feel for them, now I have children of my own), could only hope we’d check in with the occasional reverse-charge phone call. Those wildly expensive calls were short; enough time for an “I’m OK, I love you” (and the odd request for money), not enough for a rundown of the nights spent at train stations.

Jordan Baker (right) on a guest house balcony in Cesky Krumlov during the European summer of 1995.

We had wild adventures that summer. We danced on rooftops, swam in fountains and snuck into Roman ruins at midnight. We made stupid decisions (luckily, none with lasting consequences). We lost things (me: a passport, a camera and an airline ticket), we hurt ourselves (tick fever, moped accidents), we looked after each other. We practised handling ourselves in tricky situations. We read the books other travellers gave us. We embraced everything around us with the confidence of the naive.

That summer, I realised how much I loved meeting people and hearing their stories. I wanted to do it forever. That’s when I decided to become a journalist.

Thirty-odd years later, I can still remember the thrill of that morning on the balcony, the thrill of discovery that ran through that whole trip. As a journalist, I’ve visited many places since then. I’ve heard – and told – many stories. I’ve made good and bad decisions and dealt with challenges that have tested me far more than a missed train or lost passport. I’ve never quite recaptured that first thrill. But I am still fuelled by the same curiosity, by the same joy of discovery as I felt during that European summer, which led me to one of the best decisions of my life.

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