It began before dawn in London, late October 2025. The leaves were falling, the city half asleep, and the world on edge. There was a ceasefire in Gaza that few believed would hold, the war in Ukraine dragged on, and markets twitched. The dollar felt weak, gold strong, while politicians claimed calm as data whispered otherwise.

I drove from London to Krems to give a lecture, but the journey became a test. What does inflation look like in real life when you strip away charts? I set out to read it in streets, cafés, and behaviour across Europe.

At 4:45 a.m. I left my flat. Two vagrants under a streetlight, empty beer bottles by a tree. Wealth on paper, neglect on the ground. London calls itself resilient, yet feels weary. Fewer people in cafés, more laptop nomads, optimism spoken more than felt. Even motion seems cautious now.

By Liège the pattern was clear. Once an industrial powerhouse, the city showed the residue of prosperity - shuttered shops, graffiti, laughter edged with fatigue. My hotel was almost empty. Mine was the only UK number plate. The receptionist blamed the pandemic and the tramline that split the centre. “It never quite came back,” she said. Economies rarely do. Lesson one - recovery is not a statistic. It is a feeling, and it has drained away in much of Europe.

Weimar gave lesson two. The Weimar Republic is the textbook of how confidence dies. When money stops meaning anything, democracy soon follows. In 1923, hyperinflation made wheelbarrows of notes worth less than bread. In 2025, markets rise and fall for reasons that feel eerily similar - momentum without meaning. While I was there, gold fell five per cent. Not a crash, a purge - the market shaking off tourists. Politicians call such movements healthy. History calls them warnings.

Driving south toward Austria, rain was relentless. Woods glowed red and gold. Lorries from Poland, Slovakia, and Kazakhstan passed in convoy - none from Britain. The German-Austrian border was open yet not. Trucks stopped, cars waved through. The European Union felt less like unity than uneasy coexistence. Solar panels replaced crops, wind turbines turned above fallow fields. Progress, perhaps, but hungry for land.

By the Danube, history became metaphor. At Passau the Inn, the Ilz, and the Danube meet. Trade along those waters revived the region after the 1920s crisis. Liquidity restored, literally and figuratively. Money, like water, depends on flow. Too little and the world withers. Too much and it drowns.

Through Linz and into Krems I thought of Britain again, a country mistaking property for productivity and inflation for investment. We are told everything is under control. So was the Reichsbank once. Control often turns out to be a story money tells itself.

What did the road teach? Economies are psychological before they are mathematical. Wealth and poverty coexist more easily than politicians admit. Countries share geography but not temperament. Optimism is often loudest just before collapse.

Hyperinflation does not return overnight. It arrives quietly, disguised as stimulus, explained as growth, justified as temporary. Then one morning, the money buys less, and the patience buys nothing. That is when democracies wobble.

The real currency is trust. I found it not in markets but in small exchanges. A waitress laughing about porridge needing to be made by a Scot in a kilt, a student explaining democracy in Weimar, a Polish truck driver waving on the autobahn. When money fails, and one day it will, these human transactions will keep value alive.

Europe is not collapsing, but it is drifting, and the signs are there for anyone who cares to look.

This is Inflation Road Trip. I am Richard Villar, and I fear there are troubles ahead.