Road trip on Friday - The Balkans Part 2

[j33myb]

Well, set off on Friday round Europe to Serbia, (FYRO) Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro and Croatia. Had planned taking the Corrado, but decided that the Audi is safer, quieter, has a longer LPG range and more space.

Set off on Friday and take the overnight ferry from Hull.

Route is:
Nuremburg
Graz
Slavonski Brod
Belgrade
Nis
Skopje
Struga
Tirana
Podgerica
Dubrovnik
Tisno
Maribor
Braunau am Inn
Somewhere near Frankfurt
Overnight ferry to Hull
Home

Looking like 3700 miles all in, shoud be good. Looking forward to it, have managed to get breakdown cover from the ferry company which is a big plus. Had to reorder adaptors as cannot find the ones I had. Slightly nervous about the quality of roads or any red tape we might come across, although it soudns like these countries are much safer than they used to be.

Will try and do a blog, either on here or one of the other forums and post a link (if mods don't mind).

[Tubbs]

Sounds good ! Can i tag along too ?

[mat_fenwick]

And me! I love a good road trip, but I'll settle for a blog and some photos...

[Tubbs]

Dont reckon my wife, or my customers who have booked their cars in for conversion would be very happy. I think i will have to settle with the blog and photies too

[j33myb]

Will do my best

Should be a great trip, my mother has decided she wants to see as much of the world as possible before she's too old or too poor and my dad works too much, so it's down to me None of my 3 siblings have ever been up for this type of road trip.

Got the car all serviced yesterday, so fingers crossed I don't encounter any problems. Have managed to get Mondial Breakdown cover with the ferry for £65, which seemed a bargain compared to the £400ish wanted elsewhere (for a 14yr old car).

Ah well!

[Morat]

Awesome
See if you can get any photos of Jajce or Donji Vakuf

[classicswede]

Sounds like a nice road trip. Take lots of photos and perhaps some vids.

Will be interesting comparing LPG prices

[Gilbertd]

Double check your insurance green card to make sure you have the non-EU countries specifically marked, I had to buy a months worth of Serbian motor insurance when travelling from Sofia via Nis and Belgrade. Also confirm that the breakdown insurance covers you for non-EU countries too, not all do. The border crossings aren't too bad these days but be aware that when re-entering the EU you are likely to be searched quite thoroughly. Some countries will issue what is effectively an immigration card for the vehicle, make sure you have it when you leave the country.

Roads shouldn't be too bad either. The worst roads I found were in Romania (diabolical) which is why I came back via Serbia purely to avoid them. Everywhere else was pretty good. Italian Cup filler just about everywhere except you'll probably need ACME screw in Germany.

[j33myb]

Thanks gilbertd.

I've got cover for Serbia sorted as well as Montenegro, so just need to get Macedonia and Albania (at the border?!). We'll just have to grin and bear the cost as we have no other option.

I've got to say, Aviva have been really really helpful. They upgraded the insurance to Fully Comprehensive for all the countries they cover for a reasonable cost, as well as extending cover into Montenegro and issuing Green Card.

Now..where id I put that registration document...eek!

[Gilbertd]

Serbia charged me about 100 Euros for the insurance and I found that an International Driving Permit was very useful in Belarus while having a conversation with a policeman.......

[e301988325i]

I don't know how valuable your car is, but check the small print of your breakdown cover, the ones I looked into for Germany had a statement in, your car can be financially written off if the repatriation costs exceed that of your vehicles worth. So I didn't bother and took a tool kit instead!!!

[colin33]

Double check your insurance green card to make sure you have the non-EU countries specifically marked, I had to buy a months worth of Serbian motor insurance when travelling from Sofia via Nis and Belgrade. Also confirm that the breakdown insurance covers you for non-EU countries too, not all do. The border crossings aren't too bad these days but be aware that when re-entering the EU you are likely to be searched quite thoroughly. Some countries will issue what is effectively an immigration card for the vehicle, make sure you have it when you leave the country.

Roads shouldn't be too bad either. The worst roads I found were in Romania (diabolical) which is why I came back via Serbia purely to avoid them. Everywhere else was pretty good. Italian Cup filler just about everywhere except you'll probably need ACME screw in Germany.

I agree about the roads in Romania, but never fancied paying extra for the Serb Insurance. I'm told that you now don't need extra insurance cover as most companies now cover Serbia.
Out of curiosity, what were you doing in Sofia?

[Gilbertd]

My brother married a Bulgarian girl and it was going to cost a fortune to get her belongings transported to the UK when she moved here. As someone that will drive anything anywhere, I borrowed an ex-water board 3.5 tonne LDV van from a mate and went to collect her things. 60 assorted sized cardboard boxes, all neatly labelled with what they contained and a full inventory in English, German and Bulgarian were loaded into the van and I bought them back. Had the contents examined very closely at the Serbian border but after opening about 10 of the boxes and finding that boxes marked books contained books and boxes marked shoes contained shoes, they got bored and told me to clear off. They did comment that there seemed to be a lot of boxes of books and I mentioned that my sister-in-law was a doctor by way of explanation. That backfired slightly as they then wanted to know if I was transporting narcotics! It was at the next hut that I had the documents for the van checked and had to buy the insurance. Crossing from Serbia into Hungary caused yet another search of the van, only this time they wanted me to empty the van myself. Unfortunately, I was tired and hungry so my response was if they wanted it unloading they could unload it themselves. Although they didn't speak English I think they got the gist of what I was saying and I ended up spending well over two hours there. The moral of the story is don't upset a man with a gun on his hip and your passport in his top pocket......

My wife is from Minsk, Belarus and I've driven there and back three times in my old Saab 900 on gas (and am planning on going over there in the P38 later this year). That's quite straightforward in comparison although the sight a of RHD car over there does cause a bit of interest. On one trip I managed to get stopped by a mobile German customs unit just after I'd passed the derelict border crossing from Poland. They wanted to know how many cigarettes I had, how much beer I had, how much alcohol I had and how many litres of petrol in cans I had. When the answer to all questions was none, and they had checked the car to confirm it, they seemed to be quite confused over why a Brit had driven into Poland and back in the first place......

[j33myb]

Well, we made it back without a hitch - 4008 miles all in.

Had a great trip, Audi ran like a dream the whole way. Cruised beautifully at 90/100 through Germany, so quiet - if you sit at 70/80 you are in and out of lanes, so better just keeping up with everyone. You can tell this car was built for cruising the autobahn - you couldn't hear the engine at all, and very little road noise. Also hauled itself effortlessly up goodness knows how many twisty mountain passes without breaking sweat.

Serbia seems like a very poor country, probably the poorest of the Balkan countries we have visited so far.

The highlight was probably Albania - not as poor a country as I thought, but full of contrasts. You had a spacious city with modern hotels and restaurants with a lovely park near the centre - but the train station was horrific, with two platforms and completely decrepit carriages. The timetable for this capital city station was hand written on a board. You had a huge number of Mercedes, and many top spec 63AMG versions gunning it past people on a horse and cart.

When we crossed into the border to Albania, no-one asked for a Green Card and it took about half an hour to eventually get one for 30Euros. No-one at the border (Qafe Thane) spoke a single word of Engligh and it was a lot of pointing and gesturing to eventually get it printed!

We ended up in Kosovo too, visiting Pristina for a short while - the place is a hive of activity, lots of money must be getting invested and was interesting driving about Pristina in the pouring rain in busy traffic...

At Montenegro, they border guard was not happy with the copy of the Green Card I had (the proper version never arrived on time for departure), and so I had to purchase insurance for 30Euros. Only says 15Euros on the certificate, but I didn't notice that until too late! LPG was cheap in Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro, about 60/65p a litre.

Austria was it's usual unhelpful self in that LPG is not widely available, and when it it, it's expensive (0.85E) and you have to seek it out.

Belgium was cheap for LPG which get got before we returned to the UK for 0.67E.

All in all a great trip, too much to write about here, I'd be here all day! But I would certainly recommend it, the roads were gernally very good, even in Albania (except some bits where they must have ran out of tarmac and it was just mud and rubble!)

Crossing borders was all pretty smooth, never had any issues. Insurance is available at most border crossings, so no worries there.

I've got some pics and vids, will try get them uploaded..when I'm not in work