Egon began by leaving Switzerland and following his own selfdetermined way. He adventurously traveled by foot with the juvenile dream destination of India and Java. He felt an affinity towards such places as he had learned some Malay as a child in order to talk with his brother in a "secret language". He also may have been inspired by the name of the street of his birth, Javastreet. But events unfolded differently...

He roamed through Spain and Morocco for nine full months. Simultaneously magical and dangerous, this trip became a formative experience for him, both as a person and as an artist. During nights passed under the open sky, in smoky taverns and in Bedouin tents, impressions of experiences far from that of the usual of a well-bred young man were fixed permanently in his memory. Until the end of his active creative life – 70 years later – he would incorporate them into his paintings.

Gentle beauties and heated glances over black fans, monotonous songs and exotic dances awoke his fantasies. He watched the play of light over the Sierra, was enchanted by the jumping dolphins during his passage to Africa and practiced the drawing of clouds and spray-crested waves.

Between oriental poetry and liberation war, the young man, not even fully adult, wandered through sleepy villages and timeless deserts. Due to the revolt of the Rif population against the Spanish colonial powers in Morocco, he wore Arab dress for security's sake and learned by heart the first verse of the Koran, which came in handy in many situations.

He met columns of soldiers of the Foreign Legion and mounted warriors with turbans and drawn bayonets. On his return he was suspected of being a spy and unjustly imprisoned in Cadiz, Spain, for many days. There he studied the faces of sinister characters and profited from the boxing training he had taken in earlier years ...

In 1922, Egon von Vietinghoff, his parents and his brother were granted Swiss nationality with citizenship in Zurich.

However, he seemed to consider this as a possibility for easier travel rather than an invitation to stay in Switzerland. For, he was now of age and had a recognized passport instead of the large, folded paper issued by the former Russian Empire with the obliterated Czarist emblem.

He would not settle down in Zurich until 1938 / 1940.

1922, he lived in Munich (Germany) for some months, where he went to a drawing school. Simoultaneously, he frequently visited the Alte Pinakothek and embarked on an endeavor that would fascinate him for years: the study of the Old Masters. He minutely analyzed their works, passionately searching for the secret of their technique, their colors and the composition of their pictures.

After this period, he moved to the isle of Capri (Italy), painting and drawing from nature.