I got the idea for this project several years ago. When I realized just how extensive the Europastrasse network is, even running into such roads in Asia, and when it became clear to me just how unclear to me and many others the underlying idea is, I decided to drive one of them from A to Z. But, “The map is not the territory.” What I’m learning about here is our continent, us.

Vardø has caught my interest. A village at the end of the world. Or that’s how it looks from my perspective, at least. (I admit that I often view the earth as being a flat disc.) And it’s to just this end that a certain Europastrasse leads. Why? At this road’s other end is Sitia, on Crete. Which is probably a bit better known, but I’m no more familiar with it. If it’s not at the end of the world, it’s at least at the end of Europe.

So the E75 becomes my Europastrasse of choice. I really like how, in running from north to south, from south to north, it traverses the entire continent and so many cultures that touch our own. Sitia, one of Europe’s southernmost points. Farther south than the Straits of Gibraltar, farther south than Sicily. Vardø, on the other hand, is a good ways north of the Arctic Circle,  near the North Cape. Compared to which Iceland is a positively tropical place.

I’d first gotten the idea for this project back when we still lived in a different Europe. And then, in the autumn of 2015, I went to the train station in Linz to see the Middle Eastern war refugees for myself. It’s always hazardous to live only in the abstract. And though I’d read lots about the refugees, I’d never actually seen one. So I went to have a look, found people. And on that day at the train station, it dawned on me: Europe is changing radically, to an extent at least equaling how it did following the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. Back then, there was no political unrest. This time, the whole thing hasn’t even yet reached its climax. That’s the difference.

So I’ve set off into a Europe that’s different than it was a year ago, into another one than I’d expected. And it’s good to d(r)ive into such a cross-sectional experience of our continent. It’s all one Europe; most countries along the E75 are part of the European Union. And even so … we’ll see.