Schengen Shenanigans 2023
or
Why Our Life is now Lived in 90-day Cycles
Near Schengen on the Mosel Cycle Route entering France from Germany
Schengen is a small Luxembourgian town on the Mosel, very near borders with both France and Germany. It was here on 14 June 1985 that 5 countries (Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) of what was then the EEC signed an Agreement that fully opened their borders to each other.
By 2023, the treaty had been extended to 27 countries, 23 of them in the EU and 4 in EFTA (Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Lichtenstein), all to have open borders with each other. In March 2024, Bulgaria and Romania will make the total 29 countries. The population of the Schengen Area is exceeded only by China and India; by area it is seventh in the world.
The UK and the Republic of Ireland were granted the freedoms and privileges of the Schengen Area without actual membership, something the UK lost (threw away) completely in Johnson’s half-baked version of a post-Brexit agreement.
61 'foreign' countries, now including the UK, have visa-free travel in the Schengen Area but with restrictions. At the moment passports have to be stamped on entry and exit at the outer boundaries of the Schengen Area, be it by land, sea or air. Towards the end of 2024, every traveller from the 61 countries will have to prove their identity by applying and paying for the 'visa waiver' online some days before travel. On the very first entry into the Schengen Area thereafter, fingerprints and a mug shot will be taken and stored! This may cause some delays!!
But the real devil is in the detail. The visa waiver allows no more than 90 days travel or even existence in the whole of the Schengen Area within any period of 180 days!!! Travellers, tourists and second-home owners must continually look over their shoulders and count how many days were spent in the Schengen Area from whatever the date was 180 days ago. And would that still be true tomorrow? Two of our English friends who enjoyed a long holiday on a small Greek island didn’t keep count and were fined a total of €1,300 on departure from Athens airport. Protesting, they were told the alternative was to be banned from the Schengen Area for a year! And they live in an EU (but non-Schengen) country - the Republic of Ireland.
So that wonderful sense of space and freedom we experienced in 25 years of full-time travel (1995-2020) has gone. No longer are we free to wander and feel the continent stretching before us from the Atlantic and North Sea to the Black Sea, and from the Mediterranean to the Barents Sea. From sea to shining sea. Now there are always questions – should we use up the 90 days all at once (yes) or use a bit and save some for later (no – this restricts the length of journeys and counting the days gets very messy). So now we wait day-by-day, dragging along the 180 days that lie behind us, waiting until the total number of Schengen days therein falls below 90.
The website How Many Days? enables every kind of calculation between dates, and adding or subtracting days from or to dates. For example, 15 February 2024 minus 180 days equals Saturday 19 August 2023, or minus 90 days it's Friday 17 November. Or record all the ins and outs of the Schengen Area in Excel and get it to calculate for you!
By 2023, the treaty had been extended to 27 countries, 23 of them in the EU and 4 in EFTA (Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Lichtenstein), all to have open borders with each other. In March 2024, Bulgaria and Romania will make the total 29 countries. The population of the Schengen Area is exceeded only by China and India; by area it is seventh in the world.
The UK and the Republic of Ireland were granted the freedoms and privileges of the Schengen Area without actual membership, something the UK lost (threw away) completely in Johnson’s half-baked version of a post-Brexit agreement.
61 'foreign' countries, now including the UK, have visa-free travel in the Schengen Area but with restrictions. At the moment passports have to be stamped on entry and exit at the outer boundaries of the Schengen Area, be it by land, sea or air. Towards the end of 2024, every traveller from the 61 countries will have to prove their identity by applying and paying for the 'visa waiver' online some days before travel. On the very first entry into the Schengen Area thereafter, fingerprints and a mug shot will be taken and stored! This may cause some delays!!
But the real devil is in the detail. The visa waiver allows no more than 90 days travel or even existence in the whole of the Schengen Area within any period of 180 days!!! Travellers, tourists and second-home owners must continually look over their shoulders and count how many days were spent in the Schengen Area from whatever the date was 180 days ago. And would that still be true tomorrow? Two of our English friends who enjoyed a long holiday on a small Greek island didn’t keep count and were fined a total of €1,300 on departure from Athens airport. Protesting, they were told the alternative was to be banned from the Schengen Area for a year! And they live in an EU (but non-Schengen) country - the Republic of Ireland.
So that wonderful sense of space and freedom we experienced in 25 years of full-time travel (1995-2020) has gone. No longer are we free to wander and feel the continent stretching before us from the Atlantic and North Sea to the Black Sea, and from the Mediterranean to the Barents Sea. From sea to shining sea. Now there are always questions – should we use up the 90 days all at once (yes) or use a bit and save some for later (no – this restricts the length of journeys and counting the days gets very messy). So now we wait day-by-day, dragging along the 180 days that lie behind us, waiting until the total number of Schengen days therein falls below 90.
The website How Many Days? enables every kind of calculation between dates, and adding or subtracting days from or to dates. For example, 15 February 2024 minus 180 days equals Saturday 19 August 2023, or minus 90 days it's Friday 17 November. Or record all the ins and outs of the Schengen Area in Excel and get it to calculate for you!
To be sure of enjoying an uninterrupted 90 days entirely within the Schengen Area, we would have to leave a full 90 day gap since we last left the area. On the other hand, we can and do get more than 90 days away by visiting one or more of the small number of non-Schengen countries around the periphery of the Schengen Area. These include the Republic of Ireland and Cyprus (both with intractable border problems), the Balkan countries of Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia Herzogovina, Macedonia, Kosovo and Albania as well as Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Georgia and the Ukraine. We have travelled in all of these countries by motorhome and bicycle, although Israel and the Palestinian Territories are not yet ready to welcome us as returning cyclists! Or you could just get less ambitious, leave the motorhome in a storage area, the bikes in the shed and buy a high-street package that flies well away from Europe (or even a cruise)?
On several occasions we have mentioned to fellow Europeans (the English language still spreads and flourishes on the mainland, even if we can’t) that we have to leave – we are catching a ferry – can’t wait – the 90 days are up – we are being expelled for the next 90 days. They ask "Why did you vote for that? You belong here!’’ Indeed, who could have voted for that? It might be said that nobody voted for it, since those who did were indeed nobodies. Too ignorant, too distracted by xenophobia to know what they were voting for.
In the Brexit process, the whole of ‘Europe’ became a foreign country Why can’t we see ourselves as others see us? This misty offshore island, a broken country lost in an absurd version of its imagined and invented past? Henry VIII would still feel at home, indeed impressed by the number of Lords with their own House, the continued power, wealth and influence of the aristocracy (from whom sprang the capitalists) and headed by a burgeoning monarchy, with its vast estates and a plethora of palaces, still coronated as the head of Henry's established Anglican Church. What a legacy he left and that we preserve. Living in remnants of a fantasized past.
Anyway, here's Margaret's illustrated account of our cycle ride along the Mosel to Schengen in the Autumn of 2014.
On several occasions we have mentioned to fellow Europeans (the English language still spreads and flourishes on the mainland, even if we can’t) that we have to leave – we are catching a ferry – can’t wait – the 90 days are up – we are being expelled for the next 90 days. They ask "Why did you vote for that? You belong here!’’ Indeed, who could have voted for that? It might be said that nobody voted for it, since those who did were indeed nobodies. Too ignorant, too distracted by xenophobia to know what they were voting for.
In the Brexit process, the whole of ‘Europe’ became a foreign country Why can’t we see ourselves as others see us? This misty offshore island, a broken country lost in an absurd version of its imagined and invented past? Henry VIII would still feel at home, indeed impressed by the number of Lords with their own House, the continued power, wealth and influence of the aristocracy (from whom sprang the capitalists) and headed by a burgeoning monarchy, with its vast estates and a plethora of palaces, still coronated as the head of Henry's established Anglican Church. What a legacy he left and that we preserve. Living in remnants of a fantasized past.
Anyway, here's Margaret's illustrated account of our cycle ride along the Mosel to Schengen in the Autumn of 2014.
Crossing the Mosel Bridge from Germany into Luxembourg
Cycling Grevenmacher to Schengen & Back
A 65-km, 3-country ride in Germany, Luxembourg and France
Starting from Camping La Route du Vin in Grevenmacher, we rode over the bridge from Luxembourg to the German bank of the Mosel. This is the best side for cycling upstream parallel with the Mosel Weinstrasse, past the villages of Wellen and Nittel, each with a railway halt. As so often on the Deutsche Bahn, we noted that passing trains carried bicycles. At Wehr we climbed up into the village in search of coffee but found only wine on sale! Luckily it is still sunny and warm for the grape harvest (while friends email that it's cold and wet in Hamelin and Dresden).
After Palzem we had coffee and cake in the café at Camping Dreilaendereck (= three countries corner) near Nennig (20 km). The friendly old lady gave us a gift of sweet grapes from the vine that had been planted by a Russian prisoner of war. Over the bridge in Luxembourg lay the town of Remich but we continued on the German bank on a good sealed cycle path some 30 km to the end of the Moselradweg at Perl - and the last page of our sturdy waterproof map published by Kompass.
A 65-km, 3-country ride in Germany, Luxembourg and France
Starting from Camping La Route du Vin in Grevenmacher, we rode over the bridge from Luxembourg to the German bank of the Mosel. This is the best side for cycling upstream parallel with the Mosel Weinstrasse, past the villages of Wellen and Nittel, each with a railway halt. As so often on the Deutsche Bahn, we noted that passing trains carried bicycles. At Wehr we climbed up into the village in search of coffee but found only wine on sale! Luckily it is still sunny and warm for the grape harvest (while friends email that it's cold and wet in Hamelin and Dresden).
After Palzem we had coffee and cake in the café at Camping Dreilaendereck (= three countries corner) near Nennig (20 km). The friendly old lady gave us a gift of sweet grapes from the vine that had been planted by a Russian prisoner of war. Over the bridge in Luxembourg lay the town of Remich but we continued on the German bank on a good sealed cycle path some 30 km to the end of the Moselradweg at Perl - and the last page of our sturdy waterproof map published by Kompass.
Perl is at the actual Dreilaendereck: straight on for the French border at Apach or across the Mosel to Schengen in Luxembourg. We crossed the bridge to Schengen, sat outside a French-style café/bar with coffees and croques (cheese & ham toasties), then returned to Perl and cycled a mile to enter France. The iron model of the Eifel tower reminded us of Filiatra in the Greek Peloponnese, which boasts a similar model alongside a globe. We returned by our outward route along the German cycle path until the bridge over to Grevenmacher and our waiting motorhome.
There are More Pictures from this Cycle Ride.
There are More Pictures from this Cycle Ride.