Rob Self-Pierson spent three months visiting European twin towns

Essex’s most enthusiastic explorer Rob Self-Pierson is most certainly the latter.

Many of us daydream about hopping into a sports car, James Bond style, and roaring off on a glamorous European adventure.

But in 2012, Rob made his dream reality. He spent three months visiting 45 twin towns across Europe, including Colchester’s sister city of Avignon in France.

The trip sawhim clock up 10,000 miles driving through 12 countries, specifically to visit some of Britain’s partner towns and cities.

His motive for such an odd odyssey? Just a genuine desire to find out more about our continental counterparts.

Rob, 30, a travel writer and blogger, who was born and grew up in Essex, explained: “I wanted to discover what happens in these twins towns and find out what I could about this cultural phenomenon, from the people who keep it going.

“After all, towns are twinned for a reason and that reason will be a positive one. That’s what I wanted to get to the bottom of.”

Rob’s fascination for town twinning or “jumelage” as it’s called in France, began when he visited Hoerstel in Germany, which is twinned with Essex’s historic town of Waltham Abbey.

“During the three days I was there I cycled through Bevergern, played basketball outside a shipping container with some German teenagers, ate raw pork, drove for an hour to a spectacular midnight funfair, and shared raclette with people from Germany, Poland and Italy. I was hooked,” he said.

“But it wasn’t easy. Getting to knowyour neighbours is rarely easy, especially if you live in the UK, because your European neighbour probably speaks a different language to you, eats different food and live in a different culture.”

So the Europe-wide trip was born from this single experience.

Before he set off Rob set up his own blog (twintownman.com) where he wrote about twin towns and asked friends, family and even strangers to suggest places for him to visit and write about.

And from negotiating hairpin bends in the Pyrenees in his belovedBMWZV4 with Simon and Garfunkel playing on the stereo, to partying at a Samba festival in the middle of a Bavarian village to drunken arguments in Praha, Rob and his girlfriend, “RG”, whowent with him, experienced it all.

NowRob’s written a book about his Euro experience, charting the twin town peaks and relationship lows of his journey.

“Twinned With...” tells the story of his adventure, warts and all, including the pressure on the couple’s relationship from one town to the next.

He admitted: “Before we headed off I had these visions that we’d be walking through beautiful plazas, spending hours drinking red wine and liaising with the friendly locals in the glorious sunshine.

That was quickly shattered.

“For the first fewweeks we were in France it was pretty grim. It rained non-stop and was dreary and there was hardly anyone around in the towns we went to for us to chat to. As the trip went on we had obstacles, including my car roof leaking, punctures, running lowonmoney and arguments – but it was also one of it not the most amazing experience I’ve had and I’m so pleased we did it.

“I have to admit I felt a little like James Bond driving through the glorious Pyrenees. It was springtime, the scenerywas out of this world. Unforgettable.

“The book is as much about the personal aspect and the strains on our relationship, as it is about the actual places – it’samixture of both. It’s got a lot of funny bits and lowmoments in. It’s very real.”

Rob and RG visited twin towns in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Latvia.

Among the highlights were bumping into a herd of camels on a village green in Eppingen in Germany, a stand-off with an overzealous security guard in Porto and the slightly awkwardmoment when Rob had to wander alone into a primary school in Susa, Italy.

Rob explained: “I had arranged to go and talk to the school children about their town’s twinning partnership with Barnstaple in Devon.

“The thing was I couldn’t speak aword of Italian and the school secretary didn’t speakaword of English and when I got there it was all a bit frantic. She seemed to be yelling at me and arguing with another member of staff while a lot of the mums were looking at me suspiciously thinking ‘what does this strange guy want?’ “In the end it turned out that was just a normal Italian conversation and she wasn’t annoyedwith me at all!”

Suffice to say it all worked out well in the end and Rob was welcomed in.

Because Rob and RG were on a strict budget, cheap hotels became their second home and in every twin town they rocked up to, the couple attempted to meet town officials and to look through official twining documents, though much of the time it proved difficult.

“Sometimes it was fantastic as we had got in touch beforehand and we had set up meetings with people whowere involved with the twinning process and theywere so pleased to see us, but other times it was really hard to find anyone who knewanything about the twinning,” said Rob.

Driving on the continent also proved to beamonumental migraine at times.

“We thought we’d been clever buying a European map for the Satnav. We also thought it was a clever move getting hold of a massive 2011-edition atlas of Europe as a back-up,” said Rob.

“But we weren’t smug for long.

The public Wifi we’d been using wouldn’t let us load our brand new map onto the satnav and the massive atlas we bought was a complete waste of money because it was so big we couldn’t see the tiny roads we needed.

“Suffice to say there were some heated arguments in the car when we got lost. Driving along the peripherique in Paris resulted in a lot of expletives!”

But although Rob and RG’s foreign language skills were limited and their patience more than tested at times, Rob said: “I never knew the idea thatmeeting a stranger, taking a photo of a town sign, and even buying a postcard could bring such joy.

“These were the little goals we’d set ourselves in each town. Not often were all three possible. Some days the shops were shut so postcards remained elusive, but the idea of collecting 50 of each spurred us on.”

There were a few let-downs. For example, inBenodet in Brittany.

Rob had been shown a postcard of the town depicting four half-naked, bronzed bathing beauties tanning themselves in soft, golden sand, a dolphin leaping from the Sapphire sea.

In reality there the weather was ferocious, the sea wasamiserable grey and Rob added: “If there were dolphins out there, theywere keeping away from the rain!”

Twinning is a tradition stretching back to the post-war years when the aim was to heal relationships across Europe.

However, it was actually around before that. The earliest known town-twinning in Europe was between Paderborn, Germany, and Le Mans, France, in 1836, while the first recorded modern twinning agreement was between Keighley and Poix-du-Nord inNord, France, in 1920, following the end of the First WorldWar.

Since then the phenomenon has become big business and councils and twinning associations have used it as a positive way to foster better educational, business and language links.

Visiting Colchester’s twin town of Avignon with its famous bridge was also an experience for Rob.

He’d heard the famous French ditty “Sur le Pont d’Avignon”

about the 15th-century Saint Benezet bridge which spans part of the Rhone, but was fascinated to discover some of the lesser-known history.

“It was a beautiful city and so full of history but it was incredibly windy and rainy when we arrived.

I couldn’t wait to see the bridge and it didn’t disappoint, although I was amazed to see it didn’t span the entire river – it sort of stops half way,” he said.

Rob also got a proposition in the city. approached by two French girls who came up to me and told me God lovedme and wanted me to go to a church concert with them. I politely declined.”

Finding out the detailed links between both towns was harder than expected.

“As hard as we searched together for signs of Colchester, we found nothing in Avignon,”

said Rob, “which was a shame.”

So would Rob advocate a quick jaunt across the channel to visit a twin town.

“Absolutely yes, 100 per cent.

The people will love you for it if you do. These partnerships, these links are historic and I came away thinking they are more important than ever, especiallywith everything that is happening in Europe at the moment.

“The more you find out about each other the more you realise our similarities but also our fantastic differences which should be celebrated.

“There’samassive misconception that twin towns are just for council jolly-ups but that’s wrong. These places are for all of us. The relationship is about you and the people in your twin town – not councillors or committees.”

They say the best things come in threes and Rob has his own trilogy in mind when it comes to adventure-seeking.

“I’ve always said I want to have a British adventure, a European adventure and a global adventure,” he said.

“I did the British one a few years agowhen I did full moon walking for a year, where every full moon I’d go out to places on the moors or by the sea to chat to people and enjoy the amazing atmosphere.

“I did that to help me get over a break-up. It was a tough time – and it worked.”

You get the sense exploration is a formof therapy for Rob. So what’s next?

“This wasmy European one and I’m obviously hoping the book will be a success. Now I’m cooking up something big overseas, but can’t say too much at the moment.”

Whatever Rob has planned, you can bet it will be a grand adventure – as he knows more than anyone, you’ve got to be in it to twin it!

To read Rob’s blogs or to pre order the book Twinned With... visit twintownman.com