During the 1970s, cheap charter flights and a strong dollar made Europe accessible to legions of American tourists. My parents and I were among this horde. I took thousands of pictures during our annual European vacations between 1972 and 1976. As I was only a teenager then, most of those images are mere snapshots. But I consider a very select few (53) of them interesting enough as photographs to be worth presenting here.

I took these pictures with a Kodak Pocket Instamatic 60 camera on Kodachrome slide film. The little slides have a surprising amount of detail. I wouldn’t try to make posters from them, but you probably couldn’t tell that a 20x25cm print was from “110.” I have written a technically-oriented article about scanning 110-format film based on what I learned from preparing these pictures.

This collection of images is too fragmented (and too old) to fit into any kind of coherent travel photo essays. So I’ve put them in “gallery” form, with relevant commentary on the pages containing the larger versions of each picture.

The title of these pages is a play on Europe Through the Back Door, a guidebook (and associated television series and tour company) by Rick Steves. He emphasizes lesser-known regions and inexpensive accommodations meant to provide a glimpse into “the real Europe” while maximizing value for money. I can’t vouch for the guidebooks or tours, but I do enjoy the PBS television series on which he serves as the genial, slightly nerdy, Everyman Traveler host.

Rick Steves is perhaps the 21st century’s reincarnation of Arthur Frommer, whose Europe On $5 A Day books convinced millions of Americans in the 1960s and 1970s that they could afford to visit Europe. (Mr. Frommer is still traveling and writing, but he long ago sold his name to a media conglomerate. It’s now a trademark for an extensive series of guidebooks that have gone significantly upscale.) Some— but certainly not all— of my family’s European adventures involved conventional packaged tours and motorcoaches that visited Europe “through the front door.” We never experienced the stereotypical “See 10 Countries in 14 Days” whirlwind, but chose tours that spent a reasonable amount of time in a few places. Those could often provide a great bargain for couples and families whose tastes and budgets weren’t as Spartan as Frommer’s.

Click on any picture to see a larger version.

Athens

Rome

Amsterdam  ·  Lucerne

The fine print: All pictures and text are copyright © 2004 by Ted R. Marcus and may not be reproduced without permission. For information about licensing any of these images for Web, print, stock, or other uses, contact me.