Philomena’s European Adventure

Philomena has Cerebral Palsy which means she can walk, feel and move, but she spends most of her time in a manual wheelchair. Alongside her support worker Nadia, Philomena recently embarked on an unforgettable European adventure.

It was an afternoon in early April when we left Melbourne bound for our first 2-day stopover in Dubai to kick off our European adventure. What a lovely place! We stayed at The La Meridian, where the staff were amazingly helpful. Nothing was too much trouble, from the transport to the room access. I am so grateful for all the work that the staff provided, I will never forget it.

Next stop (and where the adventure continued) was London.

After arriving in London, we looked around and saw as much as we could. It was hard to take it all in, and it was so cold. We had an unforgettable stop at Harrod’s, and a long trek to see The Royal Albert Hall, plus a few other places. Amazing is a good word for what we saw and experienced. I had trouble maintaining my body heat, so I spent most of the holiday cold or cold and wet, but I didn’t let that stop me from taking in everything London has to offer. I felt like I didn’t get to see enough of London – but who does when they are on a holiday!

I loved London. My biggest highlight was visiting the Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. The whole building caters to people with disabilities. There are red buttons everywhere for people with disabilities to push when they wish to move to another section of the museum.

After catching a show – ‘Tina the Musical’ – we were having trouble getting a taxi. A very lovely and helpful doorman at Waldorf’s came out and flagged down a taxi for us. I must say, the Black Cabs in London were a great transport option, especially for wheelchair users.

Before embarking on the Trafalgar Tour, I really had no idea what was involved, how long the days would be or how hard it would be to repeatedly get on and off the bus with my manual wheelchair (at least six times a day, I discovered!)  I’m fortunate to be able to stand and walk for short periods, but I did wonder how challenging it might be to do this tour for someone who may not be able to stand. My attitude of “you can do it” really helped me.

We saw some amazing places on our travels. Some of the places I loved most were Tuscany, Sorrento and Florence in Italy.  Salzberg in Austria, and I will never forget the Swiss Alps – and Paris too! The list could go on.  If I returned to any of these places, I would stay for more than one night and take things a lot slower.  While we saw a lot of Rome. and it was all very special, I probably would not venture back to Rome. For me, it was just too hard in a manual wheelchair.

Europe is much bigger than I imagined it would be. Also, it is much harder to get around for wheelchairs of any type than I expected – especially with so many cobblestone paths. It felt constantly long and physically challenging, and at one point my wheelchair broke (and my spirit too, almost!) But getting around was made so much easier with the encouragement of my support worker Nadia and maintaining a positive attitude.

Fortunately, Nadia had been to Europe several times before, so she was able to guide me as to what we might do, as well as continue to do most of the pushing of my chair, getting us to-and-from tours and adventures. I could not have done it without Nadia – her knowledge and support throughout the trip was invaluable (and her company was most enjoyable).

Having an excellent travel agent was extremely helpful for me too. Thankfully my travel agent – Emile –helped plan the trip around the best wheelchair accessible places to make my travels easier and less stressful for me. If you have not been somewhere, and you have been told how hard it might be, you don’t really get it until you are there.

Upon reflection, I would not have done Europe and all that goes with it any other way. On several occasions, I experienced the willingness of strangers to help me to do things. These people all hold a happy place in my heart, for evermore.

This trip has allowed me to create lifelong memories of the (many) special things we did and saw, and just how lucky I felt to have been able to do it all having Cerebral Palsy.  We took over 700 photos and as I share the hundreds of photos and memories with people, the joy that I felt by being on the trip and being accepted by all the other participants is overwhelmingly positive.