DITTRICH
MB Enthusiast
Dear All,
As some of you are interested in my little trips to the continent, I thought I'd report on progress so far...
Arrangements were very rushed, due me being out of the country on business for the last month. Nonetheless I managed to arrange everything including the visa within 24 hours. That's green card, IDP, breakdown, visa, eurotunnel and the first night's hotel in Berlin. In fact everything except version 9 of City Navigator NT for my Kenwood Garmin KNA-G520 7" indash satnav system. After being mucked about by one company who managed to screw up almost everything I got a next day delivery from an outfit in Devon.
This brings us to the end of Wednesday.
Thursday, I visit the garage to get the maps installed. I need the garage because they alone know where they hid the unit in my car. It's an SD card but it won't update the onboard maps but it will work if I leave it in the SD slot. Yeah!! I need it because v9 includes baltic states and Poland. I turn up at eurotunnel and for a change get bumped forward by 1 hour rather than being delayed. However, only on the continent troubles begin. There has been an accident on the E313 and the Antwerpen R1 ring is jammed solid - for 3 hours. There are also autobahn roadworks and I arrive at the Berlin Hilton at 2am! 15 hours.
Friday, there is no room at the Scandic Hotel in Vilnius so I book the Warsaw Hilton (Simonsmerc-thanks) Its finally open in March and very nice it is too. Rooms cheap but services expensive. I get 20th Floor Room with view of most of the City. However getting there is a nightmare. Polish roads are worse than russian roads and although the new motorway (very good) knocks hours off the journey at a cost of 33PLZ (GBP6) the rest is a big big struggle. All polish road engineers should be shot. The trucks have flattened the road into grooves in some place 4-5 inches high. Driving along a single carriage road in and out of these ruts at 100kph is like a skating rink especially with the 17" AMG 225 / 245 wheels. The Poles are total nutcases on the road - dangerous - the russian are agressive but fast and relatively safe - the Poles are in a league of their own. The speed limit signs and the centre road markings are universally ignored. I was glad I got to drive alot in Italy as I think it speeded up my reactions and roadcaraft no end. It took me 9 hours to get to Warsaw including an extra 2 due a truck smash near the german border which closed the autobahn. A whole car carrier full of marmelised cars - don't worry not mercs - carnage. Oh and I might have got done by a polish fixed speed camera - but I don't know what speed I should have been doing and it didn't flash. And I should mention a special word for the Polish border passport control. Very rude and a huge queue to get through. The bloke claimed he told me to stop and I didn't. But he didn't speak english and I didn't speak Polish. He shouted - I smiled and handed over my passport - what a complete asshole. Part of the EU? My @rse.
Saturday, I leave Warsaw and head out to Vilnius. A short trip and I arrive by 7am. Strangely, the roads here are much better and the ruts much less deep as I choose a more cross country route off the beaten track. The speed limits in Litnuania are very very slow and there are loads of Police on the roads with radar guns. My technique was to hitch a lift behind other cars and lo and behold the car in front got done and I sailed through no problems. Seriously though the Lithuanians are disciplined on the road and you'd be wise to adhere to the limits there.
Sunday.
A fruitless day searching for somewhere to buy russian 3rd party cover for the car. Yes its Sunday! Believe me if I could have arrived on another day!
Basically its another 300km to the russian border and supposedly there are banks and petrol stations which can sell you insurance - but its sunday and I do not want to drive there to find out its monday morning - believe me! I also moved hotels to the congress hotel because I got bumped from scandic by a higher priority customer - c'est la vie.
Tomorrow
Well hopefully insurance! or something. I'm not going straight to Moscow but to some tourist resort at a lake "seleger" so the distance is less - Friends, wife and kid will be there already today. Only 700km tomorrow (2,300 already done). Car is still in one piece (I did "touch" a rabbit's foot the other day - it was on the road still attached to the rabbit - well my tyre touched it so that counts doesn't it? NB the rabbit was already dead.)
Hopefully my room will be ready in a few minutes and I can bog off and do some sightseeing. Still life ain't so bad and hopfully the financial markets won't have completed self imploded by the time I get back.
Best Regards
Les
As some of you are interested in my little trips to the continent, I thought I'd report on progress so far...
Arrangements were very rushed, due me being out of the country on business for the last month. Nonetheless I managed to arrange everything including the visa within 24 hours. That's green card, IDP, breakdown, visa, eurotunnel and the first night's hotel in Berlin. In fact everything except version 9 of City Navigator NT for my Kenwood Garmin KNA-G520 7" indash satnav system. After being mucked about by one company who managed to screw up almost everything I got a next day delivery from an outfit in Devon.
This brings us to the end of Wednesday.
Thursday, I visit the garage to get the maps installed. I need the garage because they alone know where they hid the unit in my car. It's an SD card but it won't update the onboard maps but it will work if I leave it in the SD slot. Yeah!! I need it because v9 includes baltic states and Poland. I turn up at eurotunnel and for a change get bumped forward by 1 hour rather than being delayed. However, only on the continent troubles begin. There has been an accident on the E313 and the Antwerpen R1 ring is jammed solid - for 3 hours. There are also autobahn roadworks and I arrive at the Berlin Hilton at 2am! 15 hours.
Friday, there is no room at the Scandic Hotel in Vilnius so I book the Warsaw Hilton (Simonsmerc-thanks) Its finally open in March and very nice it is too. Rooms cheap but services expensive. I get 20th Floor Room with view of most of the City. However getting there is a nightmare. Polish roads are worse than russian roads and although the new motorway (very good) knocks hours off the journey at a cost of 33PLZ (GBP6) the rest is a big big struggle. All polish road engineers should be shot. The trucks have flattened the road into grooves in some place 4-5 inches high. Driving along a single carriage road in and out of these ruts at 100kph is like a skating rink especially with the 17" AMG 225 / 245 wheels. The Poles are total nutcases on the road - dangerous - the russian are agressive but fast and relatively safe - the Poles are in a league of their own. The speed limit signs and the centre road markings are universally ignored. I was glad I got to drive alot in Italy as I think it speeded up my reactions and roadcaraft no end. It took me 9 hours to get to Warsaw including an extra 2 due a truck smash near the german border which closed the autobahn. A whole car carrier full of marmelised cars - don't worry not mercs - carnage. Oh and I might have got done by a polish fixed speed camera - but I don't know what speed I should have been doing and it didn't flash. And I should mention a special word for the Polish border passport control. Very rude and a huge queue to get through. The bloke claimed he told me to stop and I didn't. But he didn't speak english and I didn't speak Polish. He shouted - I smiled and handed over my passport - what a complete asshole. Part of the EU? My @rse.
Saturday, I leave Warsaw and head out to Vilnius. A short trip and I arrive by 7am. Strangely, the roads here are much better and the ruts much less deep as I choose a more cross country route off the beaten track. The speed limits in Litnuania are very very slow and there are loads of Police on the roads with radar guns. My technique was to hitch a lift behind other cars and lo and behold the car in front got done and I sailed through no problems. Seriously though the Lithuanians are disciplined on the road and you'd be wise to adhere to the limits there.
Sunday.
A fruitless day searching for somewhere to buy russian 3rd party cover for the car. Yes its Sunday! Believe me if I could have arrived on another day!
Basically its another 300km to the russian border and supposedly there are banks and petrol stations which can sell you insurance - but its sunday and I do not want to drive there to find out its monday morning - believe me! I also moved hotels to the congress hotel because I got bumped from scandic by a higher priority customer - c'est la vie.
Tomorrow
Well hopefully insurance! or something. I'm not going straight to Moscow but to some tourist resort at a lake "seleger" so the distance is less - Friends, wife and kid will be there already today. Only 700km tomorrow (2,300 already done). Car is still in one piece (I did "touch" a rabbit's foot the other day - it was on the road still attached to the rabbit - well my tyre touched it so that counts doesn't it? NB the rabbit was already dead.)
Hopefully my room will be ready in a few minutes and I can bog off and do some sightseeing. Still life ain't so bad and hopfully the financial markets won't have completed self imploded by the time I get back.
Best Regards
Les
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