Six Men from Memmingen

Day forty-one, Greece. „You're off your head,“ Markus says. „But off your head in a good way. I wish more people had the nerve to do their own thing.“

He is on a road trip with five friends. They came down from Memmingen to Greece in five days, two thousand eight hundred kilometres, sometimes camping, sometimes just sleeping out. Two weeks for the whole tour. I meet them at the Meteora Garden.

„The comfort zone is overrated,“ says Wolfgang. Fear makes a poor advisor. You have to get out and see the place and the people in it.

Helmut agrees. „I've got ten good years left. I want to use them, because after that it's the home. And then what?“

Markus takes the question. „Then I'll come and visit you,“ he says, and puts an elbow into him.

„Everybody has to go his own way. At some point it's too late,“ says Gerhard. „The longer you sit on the sofa at home, the easier you are to steer.“ The world has gone strange, they say. Too many rules. Too much being managed.

Then the talk turns, the way it does, to the route, the kilometres, the places. Germany, Austria, Italy, and down.

„We've seen some beautiful country,“ says Hans.

Six men who booked two weeks. I have no return date, and for the length of one evening I envy them theirs.