The route that appealed to me most was the E8. It started at Dursey Head on Dursey Island, situated in the south-west corner of Ireland, facing the Atlantic Ocean. Ireland is a country to which I had always felt an affinity, although – apart from being given the Christian name Michael – I had no associations or family ties with. The E8’s second attraction was that it would eventually pass through at least eleven countries, six of which I had not visited. The final influencing factor was that at the age of eighteen my dad had been posted to Turkey during the Chanak crisis of 1922; I still had a few postcards that he’d purchased there – views of Istanbul (then Constantinople) where it was proposed the E8 would eventually finish. My thought was to take them with me, to see how the modern city had changed; it would be a fitting end to the endeavour . . . if I made it!
