Island or Continent; On which do you prefer to live?

I know its a hard one because we are living on an island but what are your views.

I have visited the continent many times because thats where the lovely Christine is from. I have travelled between different countries by car and rail.
I like the idea that I might say one weekend, "lets jump in the car and go skiing in Austria" or "lets go down to the south of france this weekend" or "lets get the train to Rome".
Stuff like that.

Maybe I'm just too used to my island but its feeling a bit claustrophobic at present.

Continent for the reasons you highlight above. My mother grew up on the continent with the added bonus of a CD registration plate. Her youth is filled with stories of weekends spent doing outrageous things such as travelling behind the Iron Curtain. They were based in Strasbourg which was a great base for exploring a whole host of places.

johnfás wrote:

Continent for the reasons you highlight above. My mother grew up on the continent with the added bonus of a CD registration plate. Her youth is filled with stories of weekends spent doing outrageous things such as travelling behind the Iron Curtain.

I think I did that once. I was travelling Europe when I was 19, alone, Inter-railing from Athens to Vienna with a change over in Belgrade.
The Hellenic Express.
Was Yugoslavia behind the Iron Curtain?

Essentially it was given that it was a communist state at one stage linked to the Soviet Union, though those links were weakened following titoism. Yugoslavia was meant to be a very nice place to travel back then, particularly around Croatia owing to the fact that it was so quiet.

Johnny Keogh wrote:

I know its a hard one because we are living on an island but what are your views.

I have visited the continent many times because thats where the lovely Christine is from. I have travelled between different countries by car and rail.
I like the idea that I might say one weekend, "lets jump in the car and go skiing in Austria" or "lets go down to the south of france this weekend" or "lets get the train to Rome".
Stuff like that.

Maybe I'm just too used to my island but its feeling a bit claustrophobic at present.

Same here Johnny K. A bit stir crazy at present. And I keep meeting Polish and Lithuanian people who talk about their cycle trips from home to Italy and Spain.

Perhaps we should dig a tunnel

If we tunnelled from the North across to Scotland we would be on a rail link to all of Europe. That is only a distance of something like 21 kilometers, just 4 times the distance of the Dublin Port Tunnel and quite a bit less than the Channel Tunnel which is something like 50 km.

To dig from Dublin to Holyhead would be a much taller task and Ireland to France... well that would be very far indeed.

Of course in actuality there would never be a market for these things.

The thing is, you get to really know that island....

johnfás wrote:

Essentially it was given that it was a communist state at one stage linked to the Soviet Union, though those links were weakened following titoism. Yugoslavia was meant to be a very nice place to travel back then, particularly around Croatia owing to the fact that it was so quiet.

It had a very successful tourism industry, attracting a fair few western and hollywood celebs. It was a very successful, public enterprise (albeit market) economy under Tito. I think it had the fastest economic growth rate in the world at one point, even faster than Japan during its boom years.

johnfás wrote:

Essentially it was given that it was a communist state at one stage linked to the Soviet Union, though those links were weakened following titoism. Yugoslavia was meant to be a very nice place to travel back then, particularly around Croatia owing to the fact that it was so quiet.

It was lovely - was in Belgrade, Dubrovnik (for Easter), and Budapest - back in...er....Christ...1982? It wasn't really Iron Curtain, although Budapest was rather more so (and very Soviet at the time).

Island as we keep diseases and dangerous animals away easier. The isolation is useful when a global pandemic comes about.

I also like the fishing industry, the mythology of the sea and the wonderful seaviews from Dubbalin Bay.

Islands have a greater sense of ownership and stability. Ireland is ours while our continental cousins like Belgium have all sorts of ascendant empires traipsing about the place. We just had one irritant, the English, of whom we took some time getting rid.

I also like the fact we're at the very fringe of Europe and that, "the next parish's Boston". The rugged coastline of the west and the amazing Cliffs of Moher are all fabulous elements of our islic legacy.

It's also part of our whole branding. We are the Emerald Isle. Whoever heard of the Emerald Enclave, the Emerald Shirtpocket State, the Emerald Landlocked Republic?

I'm happy with things as they are. The Continent is something to see, not something of which to be.