The Summer of Love revisited

This week: Back to San Francisco; the Hippie Trail recalled; road rage on the Costa del Sol; Bucharest and beyond

we hitched our skirts to mini length and held up our Union Jack bags. Then, chatting loudly in plummiest English accents, we entered exhibitions and shows by their exits. People simply smiled and waved us on wherever we went. So what could we do? We just waved and smiled prettily in return.

Sadly, no sex, drugs or rock and roll to kiss and tell, just the thrill of the experience, not to mention kindness from strangers we met on the buses. It warms the cockles to this day. WENDY OSBORN

Aiming for Amritsar

September 20 1969, midmorning, and the Oulton Broad roundabout was deserted. My mother’s words echoed in my ears: “I don’t know what you’re trying to prove; you must be mad.”

But my first hitchhike lift arrived and the small van took me south as far as Southwold on the A12. I didn’t dare tell the farmer when he asked me where I was headed, “Oh, Amritsar, if I can get as far as Kabul and through the Khyber Pass.” At least I had passed from Norfolk into Suffolk.

Signs to Walberswick and Dunwich were left behind. This was the edge of my world and always had been until now, at 18, I was following the coast road hoping to reach London before dark.

In fact, a lorry picked me up and by evening I was in Dover waiting for the next ferry. I had never been abroad in my life. I found a phone box and called home.

“I’m in Dover, catching a ferry.”

“You must be mad, take care.”

Five days later I had a room within sight of the Bosporus. BOWEN CORY

Honked in Marbella

Having seen my letter [about driving to Spain to avoid hiring a car there] in last Saturday’s Travel section, I thought you might like to know of my experience of driving to the Costa del Sol over the past three days. I have done this trip many times, but this was the first time since the Brexit vote and as soon as I arrived in Marbella it was different. Cars in Spain repeatedly honked horns and gesticulated as they overtook, and on one occasion almost ran me off the road. The Spanish no longer seem to like us – or drivers of cars with GB number plates – using their roads. ROD DANES