On to Europoort

Wed 25th Oct

I should have mentioned that the colours show the day by day routes. It’s probably become obvious!

On Tuesday we drove across Germany on motorway the whole way. I am now almost used to the stupid car drivers who won’t give way when you signal to pull out and drive as if 130 kph is the minimum.

It is hard when you want to progress past a lorry, to have a BMW hanging onto your rear bumper because they too want to progress past a Defender.

We connected to the outgoing route by staying at the same campsite we had used for nights 1 and 2. Instead of 32C and a massive, scary electrical storm, is was a cold 5C overnight and very damp. It had rained for much of the way.

The rain stopped as we arrived so we managed a leg-stretcher walk. However Dawn seems to have entered a carefree phase of her life and got rather relaxed on this great trip. I am pleased but worried for her future.

The final drive was through the Mosel region of Germany and on into Holland. There were one or two very high motorway viaducts, including this one which is staggering.

Then it was across to Europoort. The reason we are returning on the Hull ferry, is to have a short final run to home in the morning and to avoid the stress of the M20/25/1.

It didn’t work. The Netherlands economy seems to involve filling their complex motorway system with as many vehicles as possible. It was incredibly busy and as forecast, the rain started mid-morning and got heavier and heavier. It made for several hours of tricky driving.

Europoort / Rotterdam is the biggest industrial area you can imagine. It stretches for miles and miles. There’s so much stuff here it’s impossible to take it in. Even the view from the ferry is scary in its complexity.

However we are here on the Pride of Rotterdam which leaves at 21:00 local time and we will disembark at 07:30 local time tomorrow. So we will get a lie-in! Hopefully the Hedon Road won’t be too busy.

The overall mileage will come in at just over 5,000 so pretty much as expected. The Landy has performed well after that early overdrive oil leak. There are two underlying issues to fix, long term ones that it is time to sort out. That will be a winter project.

Into Germany

 Mon - Tues 23rd - 24th Oct

It is starting to feel like a long drive home but we are progressing well. We left Stoupa last Monday and the sun and 26C are a now pleasant memory. Several times the locals have commented on the warm temperatures. The campsite guy in Greece said so and Halloween Rachelle in Bulgaria said that the leaves would have fallen by now but most were still on the trees.

The scenery is great with great autumn colours and everywhere looks ‘organised’ once again. We are happy that we took this route and Bulgaria is still on the visit list! It feels a bit ‘frontier’; definitely different.

Gone are the roaming dogs of Albania and Bulgaria. In fact the last ones we saw were at a motorway halt in Serbia.

This puppy was tiny and the pair were wandering around the lorry park. You can see how people get attached to them, although not the locals clearly. Benedict’s life in Albania had been steered by them and also Sara and John in Bulgaria were planning their coming weeks, around what to do with the dogs they had taken in.

As we drove across Slovenia, the scenery became alpine, with rolling close-cropped grassy hills and forest higher up. Every now and then a castle or white church appears, standing up out of the buildings around it.

Schengen borders are back. I think it was in Austria where we passed across the old border post easily. only to meet a long queue of lorries a few kms further. They mainly move over to the hard shoulder, which is partly because in most countries, the emergency services expect to drive down the gap between the two traffic lanes.

We only realised what was happening when we reached a temporary checkpoint. Bigger vehicles and all lorries were being searched. We were waved through. No stowaways expected in a Landy.

Quickly we passed into Austria and the frequency of tunnels increased. We drove through dozens; some just a few 100 metres and others much longer, 6-10Km.

We needed to buy a Vignette for Austria, instead of paying tolls. Well we had to pay extra for two tunnels and also even to use the WC at services. In fact that’s the deal almost everywhere. Pay tolls and pay extra for the loo.

The vignette had to be bought from a human because the on-line version must be purchased at least 18 days in advance. 🤷🏻‍♂️ How does that work? It’s something to do with distance selling and the 14 day rule. In Slovenia and Bulgaria, we bought the vignette on line the day before we needed it.

We bought a double tunnel ticket from a booth and the barrier picked up our registration and at the next one, we went through the automatic barrier, as it had done the digital processing a few minutes earlier. The Austrian 18 day thing is as bizarre as the Greek toll system.

We filled with diesel before we left Croatia as it is almost a fixed price (€1.55 ish) and I was glad to dispense it myself. Nearly everywhere we have travelled they still employ pump attendants who don’t quite fully fill but not at this one and I filled to the brim and made a better job of doing so.

Into Germany and we made good progress and decided to miss the planned stopover at a hotel car park, where the restaurant is closed on Mondays. Park4night showed another place closer to Regensburg, where you can park in a car park opposite a wine-bar where the hostess provides meals.

We parked at about 5pm and walked over but didn’t try the door, just knocked. No one answered but an older couple turned up and went straight in!

Feeling foolish, we did too. The Frau welcomed us, said yes you can park there and yes you can “essen”.

In my best German I asked if it could be in “eine stunde” but she said “nein, jetzt”. So we compromised and settled for five minutes and sat down with a glass of wine from her little vineyard and then “flammkuchen”.

This is a sort of pizza base with bacon bits on top of cheese. It was very nice but we would have liked salad on the side.

It was a quiet village and we had lovely sleep. I was doubly happy as I found a big 18/19mm ring spanner in the middle of the road on the way to the motorway.  Had to stop!!

Across Croatia

Sat - Mon 21st - 23rd Oct

What’s the issue with UK broadcasters and people like me who want to access sports events when abroad? They know it’s me, as I am logged-in to my account on ITV X or BBC Sounds. I have declared that I have a TV license.

I can listen to the rugby build-up but at the moment of kickoff, I can’t listen anymore “due to rights issue”.

What a load of tosh. It’s me. It’s just that I’m here, rather than there. Let me watch the rugby.

Well they won’t, so for the first time I do a simple thing. I get a new app and join the thousands of others who have already done this. I am magically in the UK. Now I can watch and I do.

I watched England v South Africa (in the RWC semi-final) using the iPhone 5G providing a hotspot for the iPad.

A thunderstorm had raged from the moment we got here into Croatia from Serbia. The chosen campground at Ranc Ramarin  was rejected just before nightfall because a wedding was about to start. From experience they van be very loud and very late. I doubt the last dance would be at midnight.

We therefore moved along the road and used Park4night to find a big green space behind a bar where the attached hotel was closed. The young woman at the bar shrugged and said “no problem” when I showed her our request using Google Translate, saying “no money”’as well.

We drove 100m into the darkness and over long wet grass, lifted the roof in the increasingly heavy rain and then stayed inside for about twelve hours and ducked every time there was a flash and a bang.

The storm lasted quite some time but we fed and watered ourselves and then Dawn retired and I settled down with the iPad and headphones. 9pm kick off meant that I crawled into bed, very tired and deflated, after a 10 hour drive and that one point losing margin.

On Sunday we had a shorter drive across northern Croatia, along the border with Bosnia. We listened to an Archers omnibus and looked at the lovely scenery. This looks so much more prosperous than those villages in southern Bulgaria.

Early arrival at Brcko mini pet farm (click here) meant a nice lazy late afternoon. Nic proudly showed us the recently constructed (by him) rustic style facilities and the animals. A Minnesota pig, two horses, plenty of ducks, and lots of small goats.

It is no doubt heaven for kids. Nic is trying to develop this business, along with the campervan pitches, financed by his main work as a joiner and roofer.

We liked the double shower room building with the timber features. There are some nice touches like galvanised bucket washbasins. Unfortunately the authorities have already said that the timber building must be replaced with concrete and all the statutory blah blah blahs that they require. 

Poor Nic is showing the signs of stress with a viral infection and he’s only in his twenties.

More Bulgaria and the Serbia borders

 Fri - Sat 20th - 21st Oct

Near to Kamping Kromidovo (click here for details) there’s a thermal water-fed bath / pool. It is closed now but apparently is open during the summer. I must say though that it looks dilapidated, in keeping with most of the rest of the villages in this corner of the country.

Campsite John was loading crates of empty bottles into his car, which I assumed was to recover the deposit. This is called ‘pfand’ in Deutschland, where they have a deposit on everything, according to a couple from Germany. That was on a campsite with large motor homes and quad bikes on which to get around. They actually said, that the pfand was good “for the poor people, who can take them in and get some money”. It conjured-up a vision of posh motor-homers leaving glass, metal and plastics lying around for the poor.

John was taking the bottles to the nearby thermal spring to wash them in the free hot water, before filling them with homebrew. He told us where it was and what it looked like. It was just down the road, near the empty hot baths. So we went to look, driving across some bumpy waste ground, heading for a concrete construction. There we found a ragged sheet acting as a curtain and a rain shower, tee-d into a big pipe coming from the ground.

The valve on the shower was broken, so we were saved the option of taking one.The waters do flow, constantly and it was quite amazing to feel the heat, which is about 40C, so quite hot.

We drove into the nearby town, Bulgaria’s smallest and one of its highlights. Melnik is an architectural reserve, with some typical, traditional buildings, arranged under small but dramatic standstone outcrops, that have eroded into severely angular forms.

We had lunch there, quite something for us and enjoyed wandering around looking at the interesting building style. This is predominantly associated with constructing upper floors, that extend out beyond the walls supporting them and then requiring copious numbers of timbers to hold them up.

We also went to Rozen Monastery, which is a dependency of the monastery of the Holy Mount of Athos. “Therefore” it contains a copy of one of their ‘wonderworking icons’, in this case, that of the Holy Virgin Mary Portaitissa. There is quite a story about how this icon arrived at the Holy Mount and it is shown on this plaque.

There were no signs of the monks (is there ever) but what a place in which to live. It is very small, with rooms set around the tiny central chapel. We sneaked a forbidden photo inside. I think this would have been to avoid damage from camera flashes. Well now the iPhone at least, appears not to use the flash and instead takes a long exposure shot and somehow processes the inevitable judder, to produce a respectable image.

The following day we stocked up at a huge hypermarket called Kaufland, which sounds suspiciously German and it might be Lidl in disguise. Suspicions were further raised, as inside I think I spotted the Parkside brand but wasn’t sure. It was too far away and I wasn’t allowed to go to the tools aisle. Dawn was allowed to go to her favourite bit though.

Roadsigns are difficult in Bulgaria, once you are away from the main spots. Unlike in Greece, the alphabet is mostly unknown to us and so words can’t be worked out.

Then we drove north and a little west, to a campsite handy for the border crossing into Serbia. This is run by Rachelle, originally from Saskatchewan, who has built a house with husband and two kids, in a lovely position, near a village. This area seems more normal and is under the influence of Sofia and the move out of urban areas that occurred here during the Covid19 pandemic, just as it did almost everywhere else.

The signposts didn’t improve and we were at the mercy of OsmAnd maps, backed-up by Google maps.  They are working well together. This is the sign to the next campsite village.

It is bigger than John and Sara’s place but already closed for winter. However by having emailed ahead and promising to speak Queens English, we were invited to stay.

Actually Sara is hosting 150 people for a Halloween event that has been running and developing for several years. We assumed that this was income generating but no, she does it because it’s fun and she even provides food.

This evening she was testing the lights and continuing to place the items in the woodland walk. She has got it perfect but I have picked the must extreme items.

There are nice walkways with spider’s webs and plenty of lights  Rachelle worries that she’s gone too goolish but apparently gets good feedback from the children who attend and that spurs her on each year.

After an incredibly quiet night, with no noise for a second night, save a few cockerels crowing to each other, which felt very old-fashioned, we got up far too early and left at 08:00 on the longest day of the trip.

We wanted to cross both borders, into and out of Serbia. This is because there are next to no campsites and also because the route made sense. Border number 1 was quick enough and the passports stamped and car documents checked (and recorded we think). Then we sat on the motorway for several hours of easy cruising. Overdrive engaged, but windows open eventually, we ran across the country at 110 kph and it was effortless because the traffic was so light.

It’s quite a feeling to drive at a constant speed, with no gear changes, for hours. Bliss. Also for tolls, Serbia does what Greece should do and you pickup a ticket at an unmanned booth and don’t stop to pay until you leave the motorway, or in our case, get to the Belgrade ring-road, where the road is then toll free. At that point you pay. Once. Not before, half a dozen times. Once.

After Belgrade we turned towards the Croatia border and wondered how long the crossing would take. The queue of lorries was an early indication. Never again will we look at the pictures of operation stack on the M20 with any sort of criticism.

This queue appeared to be normal and was massive. Hundreds and hundreds are parked on the side of the road, slowly inching their way forward. At the border there was only one checkpoint for them. It is sheer madness. What a complete waste of time, fuel, resources and also what a massive delay that wait adds to the passage of goods.

The car queue was a little better, with the wait a matter of hours not days. Leaving Serbia wasn’t too bad but entering Croatia was madness. Four lines of traffic merged to three. Each car took at least a minute to get through, but that wasn’t each minute available.

We crawled forward and the exasperated Swiss and Germans kept swapping lanes, as if they knew which would move quicker. It never seemed to help. We all had our engines running, dip the clutch, select gear, move a few metres, select neutral, foot off clutch. It was endless.

These border people have no sense of urgency. They don’t care how long you might have been driving or idling. The job gets done when it gets done.

Fortunately it was only about 25C but unfortunately the place is shield insect heaven. If the windows were down, the shield insects flew in and crash landed in the cab. So we held them up outside and got hot.

It took two hours to get into Croatia.