As with many revolutions that redefine landscapes, it started with the stroke of a pen and a firm handshake rather than a rumble of bulldozers or the stomping of troops on the ground.

Nor did it come to pass in a major metropolis. There was no grand setting – Paris, Madrid or Berlin – for this rotation of the guard, no commandeering of Versailles for a photo opportunity.

Rather, it happened in a tiny dot on the map of one of the continent’s smallest entities – a place far removed from the great offices of state.

It was 20 years ago today that the Schengen Agreement came into force – on March 26 1995 – and almost 30 since the pact was signed into existence (on June 14 1985) by five members of what was then the European Economic Community (EEC).

Officials from those states – Belgium, West Germany, France, the Netherlands and Luxembourg – came together to rubber-stamp an area of unrestricted travel within their borders, an enclave where citizens could move without need for passports or queues at crossing points.

The presence of the latter duchy in the quintet was significant. It was Schengen – a town in the south-east of Luxembourg, near to the pivotal spot where its frontier meets both France and Germany – which witnessed the event. It was a place whose name was unfamiliar in 1985.

It is rather better known now.

Although it would take a decade for the arrangement to become reality, it would radically reconfigure the flow of people across the European landmass. As of 2015, the Schengen Area covers most of western – and a sizeable portion of eastern – Europe.

It encompasses 22 of the 28 current member states of the European Union, the outsiders being (relatively) recent arrivals at the party Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania and Cyprus, plus the two refuseniks, Ireland and the UK.



The Schengen Area

In addition, it effectively embraces the microstates of Monaco, the Vatican City and San Marino, and opens its arms to non-EU countries which are affiliated to the organisation by trade relations – Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

It is an enormous expanse – some 1.6 million square miles of terrain, ranging from the frosted upper edge of Scandinavia to the sunny shores of the Mediterranean.

In theory, you can drive between the North Cape of Norway and the small Spanish town of Tarifa (from where Morocco is clearly visible, 12 miles across the Strait of Gibraltar) – a road trip of some 3,524 miles, assuming you take the Oresund Bridge between Sweden and Denmark – without having to produce your passport once.



All change: Border controls between Austria and Germany are removed in 1998 (Photo: EPA)

This is perhaps the most obvious way in which Schengen has reshaped Europe. While there are, of course, other issues at the heart of the matter – notably the impact that the agreement, along with the wider structure of the EU, has had on migration patterns and labour markets – it is the smashing of the shackles on journeys across the Continent which has most affected the traveller.

To return to the example of that hypothetical road trip from Nordkapp to Andalusia, which apparently takes 57 hours if you stick to every speed limit, and don’t pause for sleep – had you attempted such an odyssey prior to 1995, you would have needed to negotiate seven international border control points (eight if you fancied a detour into Portugal, which lies close to the fastest route), each with its own layers of bureaucracy and box-ticking, its tailbacks and traffic jams, its vulnerability to summer strikes and surges in numbers. Certainly, 57 hours would have been a fantasy.



No stopping: Traffic passes through the open border between Germany and Denmark (Photo: Getty)

Is this a good thing? In terms of the functioning of a cross-frontier community in the 21st century, the idea has its advantages (hugely simpler motion, by road and rail at least) and its disadvantages (if tourists have freedom of movement, so do criminals). But in terms of the sheer romance of travel, I cannot help thinking that something has been lost. If we are to use Robert Louis Stevenson’s ever-quotable statement from his 1881 essay El Dorado as a yardstick, then we have swapped the “better thing” of “to travel hopefully” for the basic procedure of “to arrive”. The convenience of the journey has replaced the character.

What do I mean? Well, I am old enough that I have – tucked away in a draw – a first passport which is littered with stamps from holidays in Europe. Not fearless expeditions across the torso of the Balkans, but (very) mildly adventurous mid-Eighties family breaks which – in an epoch before budget airlines – involved an estate car stuffed with sleeping bags and an occasionally fraught search (“Are we nearly there yet?”) for campsites in the sunshine.

So the nine-year-old me gathered inky markers which said he had been to Italy, France, Austria, Spain and Belgium. The passport for my teenage years collected similar souvenirs from Portugal, Malta and Greece. Both are documents of early experiences – and they cannot be obtained now. Here in 2015, you all but have to cross an ocean to pick up a blue smudge of transit. To be exact, if you are flying from London, your nearest passport stamp is courtesy of a Serbian immigration officer 1,300 miles away in Belgrade.

Perhaps I am guilty of rose-tinting the past. Perhaps, in reality, all European border crossings were as dull and frustrating as the inevitable hour you spend at JFK airport in New York, waiting to be processed along with the new arrivals on the seven other flights which have landed at the same time.

Or perhaps not. Eight years ago, I passed through an international checkpoint fraught with tension – the road gateway between the Israeli resort of Eilat and its Egyptian counterparts in Taba. It was a lengthy affair – bags were checked, questions were asked, bags were checked again, previous passport stamps were perused. There were X-rays and pattings down; there were crowds of scowling staff, standing around and staring. But I was in no rush, and at the end of it all, I felt like I had leapt between continents. Which, in effect, I had – and I have two muscular imprints on two separate pages of a former passport as evidence; a meaty travel tale to dine on. You don’t find as much on a dash down the E29 highway between Germany and Luxembourg.



It happened here: A small monument in Schengen marks the agreement (Photo: Alamy)

You can, however, find something else. For those keen to learn more about the Schengen Agreement, the town offers further detail. You cannot visit the precise location of the signing – this was a boat, the Princess-Marie-Astrid, on the River Moselle – but you can head to the European Museum (00352 26 665 810; schengen-tourist.lu; daily 10am-5pm; free) for an explanation of how the Schengen Agreement was born, and its ramifications.

In contrast, for those who hanker after a lost age, the following European borders still require a conversation with a serious man in uniform – and, maybe, a sense of nostalgia.

Four European borders with proper passport controls

Finland/Russia

The frontier between Finland and its far larger neighbour falls some 115 miles to the east of Helsinki. A road trip between the Finnish capital and St Petersburg is certainly possible – it is a journey of a mere 241 miles along the E18 highway, a short skip in Russian terms – but you have to clear the border checkpoint at Vaalimaa to do so. The biggest barrier, however, is likely to be car-hire terms and conditions. If you have your own vehicle, an International Driving Permit (postoffice.co.uk/international-driving-permit; £5.50) – and a Russian tourist visa (ru.vfsglobal.co.uk; £38.40) – the city of the Tsars should beckon.



Tense: Delays at the Gibraltar-Spain border in 2013 (Photo: AP)

Gibraltar/Spain

The UK sits outside the Schengen zone, so Gibraltar – as a British Overseas Territory – is also roped off from the freedom-of-movement club. Not that this border – which runs for three quarters of a mile below the Spanish town of La Linea de la Concepcion – is ever less than a controversial issue. Spain closed it to road traffic in 1969, and again in 1970 – and it remained in this semi-frozen position until 1985. Fresh tensions between London and Madrid in 2013 also saw Spanish officials impose extra checks on vehicles leaving The Rock – resulting in snaking standstills and furious exchanges under the baking sun.

Bulgaria/Turkey

The point where Bulgaria rubs its shoulder against Turkey is a significant international line in the sand. It currently delineates the south-eastern edge of the European Union, to the extent that two thirds of this 150-mile frontier is now (or is about to be) blocked off by metal fencing and barbed wire – a bid to shore up the EU’s soft underbelly against the troubles in Syria. There is, though, a gateway between the Bulgarian village of Kapitan Andreevo and its Turkish counterpart Kapikule – a location where the two countries also meet Greece (though you cannot enter the latter here). A road trip (750 miles) between Istanbul and the (hugely underrated) Bulgarian capital of Sofia would feasibly come this way. You need a driving licence with photo to be allowed behind the wheel in Turkey.

Cyprus

Can you cross a border which does not officially exist? Only Turkey recognises the Republic of Northern Cyprus. However, the frontier which cuts off the upper portion of the Mediterranean’s third largest island – annexed in the Turkish invasion of 1974 – from the Greek-Cypriot south is very real. It was a locked gate until 2003, and even now, there are only six crossings along its 112-mile length. Only one of these, at Astromeritis, in the north-west, is open to road vehicles (and hire cars are not permitted). More accessible is the Ledra Palace Crossing in Nicosia, where you can walk through with an EU passport.